Microbe Week: Diatoms.

Crap. This blog has been usurped by modern art. Show's over, guys. Real life's not that interesting after all.

What? It hasn't?! You've gotta be kidding us...those things can't really be alive, can they?

 

Ooh yes. Yes, those colorful geometric shapes are very much alive. They are called diatoms, and they have been around since the Jurassic at least. They are eukaryotes (i.e. not bacteria, period) and are collectively called heterokonts, along with kelp and golden algae. Yes, they really do look that trippy under the microscope.

Diatoms are key players in aquatic food chains everywhere. Many of them are photosynthetic, meaning that, like plants, they make their food by photosynthesis. Diatoms make up a large portion of phytoplankton, one of the single most important biological food groups. People are trying to figure out what impact, if any, we are having on the awesome living glass sculptures.



Yes, we did say living glass sculptures. Diatoms come in a silicate shell - the same sort of thing glass is made of. The exact shell varies with the type of diatom, but they all look like they could (and should) have been made by Murano. They stay crunchy, even in salt water. Why are diatoms not a breakfast cereal, again?

Diatoms are, of course, popular subjects for bio-art. Just look at them. They look like art already. Diatoms are not only used as subjects for paintings and drawings, but also as a medium themselves! The little eagle below probably took hours to get right.



We hope that you enjoyed Microbe Week! Next theme week will be Mythbusters. Just how real are those things that go bump in the night?! 

Microbe Week: Escherichia coli.

OH NOES. This blog is covering one of the most notorious little buggers ever: E. COLI! 

This is just ONE kind of E.coli. It would make a neat lightbulb.

DIE, DIE, DIE, you stupid little microbes! This is what you get for ruining our spinach and punishing us for sloppy sanitation! CLEARLY, ALL E.COLI MUST BE PURGED!

Kidding, of course. E.coli, much like Salmonella, are mostly a problem because we don't cook our food well enough. For those of you who take raw meat and look at it under a microscope, E.coli are Gram-negative, rod-shaped (bacillus) bacteria. They are a very popular model bacterium, even if they make all petri dishes smell like an outhouse after a while. E.coli may be doing your math homework within the next few years. 



Escherichia coli and its cousin genus Salmonella are the two most talked-about bacteria on the planet. Again, if food poisoning makes the news, E.coli could well be the culprit. There are 39 strains of E. coli known to date, and all of them have one thing in common: They live in mammals.  Since I can see all that porn on your computer, you qualify.

All mammals have some strain of E.coli in them. Humans usually get E. coli as benign inhabitants of the large intestine within 40 hours of birth.They are normal gut flora in mammals, just like Salmonella is normal microflora in birds and reptiles. Issues occur when the wrong strain of E. coli gets in one's gut, leading to a very bad case of diarrhea indeed.

Like sprinkles, only alive and in your colon.

Infections with E.coli usually occur when meat or veggies have not been properly washed or cooked. The main carriers of E. coli are cows, which may show no symptoms themselves. Anything raw is also at risk, especially if wild pigs have been running around. Watering with sewage is never a good sign. In short, crap reaches mouth - that is never a good thing in humans.

Symptoms of E.coli infection vary with the strain. In general, these are colon bacteria - expect a high fever, horrible diarrhea (sometimes with blood), urinary problems, and other crotch-kicking issues. There is a particular strain of E.coli that causes meningitis in infants by cleverly disguising itself as an antibody. E.coli infection makes Salmonella poisoning look like a walk in the park.

You don't know where it's been. Oh, wait, yes you do, and it's filthy.

Did we mention that it's nigh-unstoppable? Escherichia coli develops antibiotic resistance staggeringly fast. Not only does it have our antibiotics to dodge, but it also has to protect itself from the antibiotics found in livestock. E.coli can also trade DNA with Staphylococcus aureus - the other superbug people are worried about. Even mixing agar substrates doesn't work on E.coli. T4 phage therapy is one of the best ways to stop E.coli, but how do you market "get infected with a virus to make up for our sloppy food system?"

So stop worrying about Salmonella. You've got other shit to deal with just for being a mammal.

Microbe Week: Bacteriophage.

 

Call Area 51. We have reason to believe an alien has escaped the base. I repeat, an alien has escaped the base. It looks sort of like a mix between a spider, a syringe, and a land rover. We are currently not sure if it is even alive. Over.

Technically, no, viruses are not alive. They do not respire. They do not grow. They cannot self-replicate, instead injecting their DNA into a host cell and hijacking that cell's machinery. The bacteriophage above uses bacterial cells, not ours, so don't worry.



Bacteriophages (bacteria-eaters) are exactly what their name says, assuming you can understand Greek. They don't eat bacteria so much as inject their DNA into the capsule, then let the rest write itself. The bacteria soon explodes with more alien-looking phages. Since a phage's tail can only latch on to certain parts of the bacterium, certain phages can only attack certain bacteria. The most popular is the T4 phage, which eats the pesky E.coli bacterium.

Phages are important for their ability to destroy far worse bacteria just by reproducing themselves. These viruses have been quietly used for centuries to cure cholera, leprosy, dysentery, and anything else caused by a bacterium. They are the best defense we have against supergerms and E. coli infections. Never thought you'd side with a virus, did you?



So, what about E. coli, anyways? Tune in tomorrow!

Microbe Week: Archaea.

Remember how I mentioned that the Earth's atmosphere was not always filled with oxygen? Look out side for a minute at the clear white/blue sky, green plants, and maybe even that raccoon going through the garbage. Sure, it's not perfect, but life has never been perfect.

The Earth's atmosphere was not always as nice as it is today. Picture an atmosphere of water vapor, CO2, and nitrogen with methane and other lovely gases floating around. Volcanic activity was an everyday occurrence. There is no ozone layer yet, so the most powerful sunscreen in the world cannot protect you from the sun's scorching rays. The planet's cooling down with rain and clouds, but is taking its sweet time.

 

Now picture something living in that environment. Something that isn't a red man with goat hooves and a pitchfork.



Welcome to the home of archaea. As the name would imply, archaea are really, really old bacteria. They are their own domain. Not genus, not family, not phylum, domain. They are about as closely related to bacteria as animals are to plants. They reproduce by dividing and exchanging plasmids, little rings of DNA that bacteria regularly swap like trading cards just to give humanity the finger. They do not reproduce sexually at all.

Hear that? These bacteria were around before sex and oxygen. That's how old they are.





Archaea have some really trippy ways of getting energy. Some metabolize sulfur or ammonia- stuff that most 'normal' life forms would consider disgusting. Others make energy out of light without needing chlorophyll. Still others feed on methane - a chemical abundant in the Earth's primitive atmosphere. They have as many ways of getting energy as eukaryotes, things with nuclei and all that other nice membrane-bound stuff.

At first, it was thought that archaea could only be found in extreme environments like salt lakes and volcanic hot springs. Now that is no longer the case. Scientists can pick up the tiniest traces of these organisms everywhere. They have found traces of the archaic nucleic acids in everything, from soil to seawater. Luckily, they do not infect anything - presumably, most of their time is spent calling Staph bacteria and E.coli "whippersnappers."

Still the home of archaea.

Life. It's everywhere.

"They Actually Eat That:" Spirulina.

Go to a smoothie shop sometime. Besides the flavors of the day (usually strawberry, strawberry-banana, and wildberry mixes), there is always a signboard of things that one can add to make one's smoothie healthy. (Note: This may not apply to McDonald's.) Such things include extra vitamin C, wheatgrass, extra protein, and other lovely ingredients to make your smoothie taste less like an over-sugared fruit drink and more like health food.

Then there's spirulina. That sounds adorable and scientific, and hey, the signboard says it's good for you. It sounds like another superfood. So you get some in your strawberry smoothie and it comes out looking about as appetizing as cat vomit. Don't worry; it tastes just fine.

But what did you add, anyways? There's some horrible, horrible catch to spirulina, isn't there?

Actually, this one looks really pretty!

Spirulina (Arthrospira maxima) is really a cyanobacterium, powdered for your convenience. It is one of many cyanobacteria. All that means is that the bacterium in question is blue-green due to chlorophyll - yes, the same stuff in plants. You've got the nutrients of a bunch of veggies in your smoothie thanks to eons of bacterial evolution.

Really, we mean eons. 

Cyanobacteria were the first creatures to ever make chlorophyll. That is how old they are: they predate plants. Forget the dinosaurs and trilobites, cyanobacteria are so old that they single-handedly changed the Earth from having a caustic atmosphere of methane and CO2 to one with oxygen, creating more efficient biological systems for all. (OK, except for the anaerobic bacteria - those are still around, but more on them later this week.) You owe these bacteria for the air you breathe. They're that important.  

And they look like Cousin Itt mixed with a sloth.

People have been eating spirulina for as long as humans have been around. It is pretty much everywhere. A lot of it is farmed in Southeast Asia. It is in no way endangered. Really, they're bacteria. It's hard to find endangered bacteria. 

So don't be afraid to put spirulina in your smoothie. These little guys have been feeding life since before you existed. Raise your plastic smoothie glasses to oxygen!

Microbe Week: Salmonella.

Again, Salmonella strikes us as a must-cover during Microbe Week. The crazy authoress owns several snakes, and one of the weapons most often swung against them in legislation is that all reptiles bear Salmonella on their skin. This is a load of bull, especially given how ubiquitous Salmonella is.



Salmonella is a genus of Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacteria. They can be found on almost any animal, but only infect humans through other animals. They are typically ingested in contaminated food (which has been around feces or dirty water). The resulting disease, salmonellosis, may result in bloody diarrhea, but otherwise, symptoms are usually mild. Surprise, surprise, the buggers are related to E.coli - another bacterium commonly seen in the news.

The horrible, nasty disease that people worry about with Salmonella is called enteric salmonellosis. The disease hits hard and fast - anywhere from a half a day to a week after encountering the bug. Symptoms include headache, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and bloody, mucus-filled diarrhea. Most deaths occur in the elderly. Otherwise, it just kinda sucks to have for a while. You'll probably be fine if you're over 40.

Aquatic vertebrates are the main carriers of Salmonella, but this microbe has been found in everything. Mice are just as likely to have Salmonella as chickens and reptiles. Any type of meat could potentially have Salmonella. The last two big outbreaks of Salmonella barely involved animals - even our peanuts and chili peppers aren't safe!

AAAAH, PEANUT BUTTER!

The main culprits for infection are chicken, chicken eggs, and other types of mishandled meat. This comes from how sloppy American meat processing is; stuff is allowed to mix, things are not properly cleaned, and ultimately, it's a huge, feces-filled mess that is the ideal breeding ground for bacteria. Salmonella is also hard to kill, able to endure almost anything but extreme temperatures. If the cause of death was food poisoning and cyanide has been ruled out, Salmonella's your next best guess.

Pet reptiles are far from the leading cause of Salmonella poisoning. The thing that causes 30 Americans to die from Salmonella poisoning every year is chicken. The Salmonella cases that caused the whole reptile scare came from small children putting small turtles in their mouths - admittedly, something that small children are wont to do. They're small children. They put all sorts of weird things in their mouths and have compromised immune systems. Of course they're gonna get sick.

Thanks a lot, kid.

Don't ban reptiles, ban chicken! Let's see how well that flies in Congress, shall we?

Microbe Week: Paramecium.

If you are a regular biology student, your first encounter with the microbial world will probably be with a slipper-shaped fellow called a Paramecium. It looks vaguely like an elliptical blob with strange hairs along its sides. They are rather bland as far as protists go, but simple and familiar enough to create a solid basis.

They aren't THIS colorful. Usually.

Nonetheless, it makes sense as an intro to protists. K? K.

Paramecia are found in fresh water all over the world with a few species found in the ocean. They are also frequently found in biology labs, often slowed down so that the students can observe them better. They eat yeast, bacteria and algae. Some have symbiotic algae in them already. They can reproduce sexually or asexually, which helps explain why they're so popular.

Cover your eyes, children.

 

A single-celled organism like a paramecium needs to do all the things that any other animal needs to do: move, eat, reproduce, defecate, the works. All cells need to get energy. Paramecia have mouths, organelles (mini-organs), gullets, two nuclei, and a special pump that makes sure that they do not shrivel up or explode via osmosis. Oh, and yes, they do poop. Everybody poops.

Guess what the anal pore does?

Paramecia move by fluttering tiny little hairs called cilia. They move the opposite of whatever direction the hairs are folded - that is, backwards-folding hairs move the paramecium forwards, and forward-folding hairs move the microbe backwards. If you think this sounds topsy-turvy, paramecia really do turn as they move.

Since paramecia are the main protists used in science, quite a few experiments have been done with them. One of the most impressive I have seen is the fishing rod made by Joe Davis, who can also hear the different sounds of microbes. Using a bunch of high-tech gizmos, one can fish for paramecia beneath a microscope. The fishing hook he designed fits perfectly into the oral groove of a paramecium. It really does tug when you've got a big one!

Next Theme Week: Microbe Week!

You voted, I listened: This theme week will be dedicated to the world invisible to the naked eye. There are some things that one can only see beneath a microscope, and they have been around a lot longer than anything with organs. They spawn quickly. They have evolved extensive weaponry that allows them to thrive in any condition...and we mean any. There's life where one would not normally think to find life, like in subzero conditions and thermal heat vents.



Every day will have a different micro-creature under the spotlight. Even "They Actually Eat That" will have a microbe that you never thought you actually ate. Y'know, as if yeast and cheese fungi were not enough. 

Prepare for a lot of small creatures that you never thought you'd see. And a lot of squeeing from the crazy authoress.