Category: Microbiology
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The metal matters
Life on earth is carbon-based, but carbon-based life is impossible without metals. All living organisms, without exception, need metals to live. And so, all organisms must carefully manage their metal nutrition. They must find and take up enough metals, store metals if necessary, and apportion metals correctly to different organs, cells, organelles, and finally to…
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Space flight technology benefiting human health
Using space technology right here on Earth. When individual human cells were cultured in the microgravity environment of spaceflight in the 1990s, scientists noticed that they started to aggregate and organize as structures that resembled the native tissue from which the cells were derived. This was very different to cells grown under normal gravity conditions,…
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The cities that bacteria build
Bacteria build citadels that inspire architects and save the environment. In nature, bacteria live in complex community structures known as biofilms. Living in biofilms provide significant benefits to bacteria. For example, biofilms protect their residents from environmental assaults, and improve their attachment to many different surfaces. However, biofilms play an important role in resistance to…
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My microbes made me do it!
The brain gut connection has never been clearer. We have known for a long long time that we are covered in bacteria inside and out, to the count of 10 – 100 trillion indigenous microbial cells living in symbiosis. Until recently however, the actual identity of the species of bacteria that inhabit us was unknown.…
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The Biology of Color
How do cell biologists visualize cells? Visualization has always been an important component of cell and molecular biology. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek marveled at the diversity of “animalcules”, using a single lens microscope that he designed himself. Since then, microscopy has come a long way, but had still depended on the visible spectrum of light to…