Microbio facts

>Create antibiotic
>Bacteria is inhibited for a while
>Bacteria creates enzyme able to metabolize antibiotic
>Rinse and repeat

When you realize bacteria are harder to harness than a baby

>>8662782
Janthinobacterium lividum produces a compound that can kill of chytrid fungus (which is what is causing worldwide amphibian extinctions). People are now going around dousing frogs in baths of the bacterium and it seems to help them survive.

Thiomargarita is a bacteria that is so big it can be seen with the naked eye. Another gigantic bacterium is Epulopiscium, which is found only in the guts of some species of Surgeonfish.

That 'wet earth smell' that you sometimes notice after a rain is actually a chemical called geosmin produced by a very abundant genus of soil bacterium called Streptomyces.

>>8662782
Also, some marine amoebae harbor giant viruses that are larger than many bacteria. Some of these viruses' capsids are coated with phospholipids, which some ppl think is meant to trick the amoeba into thinking it's a bacterial cell and eating it.

>>8662782
There are square archaea.

We know more species of ants (18000ish) than all of bacteria (4000 ish species) due to how difficult it is to culture a majority of bacteria

>>8662782
There are microbes which produce enzymes which we could engineer to potentially produce fuel oil

There are a lot of interesting interesting symbiotic relationships like thermites and methanogenic microbes, ants and fungi, squid and Vibrio fischeri, Riftia pachyptila and sulphur bacteria.

We know pretty much every plague wave came from Asia because we can find several thousand year old strains of Yersinia pestis still alive in things like anaerobic tooth plagues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

I don't know what's interesting to you OP

>>8663339
>anaerobic tooth plagues
obviously I ment anaerobic parts of teeth

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrobacterium_tumefaciens
^ used to genetically modify organisms but it looks like CRISPR is going to replace it

There are diseases/infections that can be caused with a very few number of bacterial cells. Shigellosis is one example.

>>8662782
The CFU is a gross underestimation of microbial population, because of the assumption that a single colony arises from a single cell.

This was really cool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acidophiles_in_acid_mine_drainage

The molecular mechanisms of pathogens like Cholera and Mycobacterium tuberculosis is extremely interesting.

And then, there's Strain 121
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_121

The flagella of archaea,bacteria, and eukarya is a great proof of intelligent design.

Oh, also, the fact that (but this is more related to life in general, but a bit more to micro-organisms since they can be found in virtually any habitat) the proteins used are comopletely adapted for the environment so they can actually survive. I found that pretty interesting, albeit extremely logical.

Also, chlorosomes and phycobilisomes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorosome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phycobilisome

some of the fermenting microbes in your digestive tract produce butyrate which enters your bloodstream. Butyrate regulates ~3% of all you genes (which is a lot) through histone deacetylaze inhibition. This means that small dots inside your digestive tract affect your day to day life by farting.

>>8663581
pretty cool, actually

>>8663491
But for many applications CFUs are what actually matters. Whether it takes one, two or 20, the ability to colonize is what is important.

>>8663581
There's this. Oxalate is a major metabolite which contributes to the formation of kidney stones. There's bacteria in our gut that metabolize that shit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20602988

Wolbachia a bacterium that resides inside insect cells. Scientists are currently investigating its effects on preventing the dengue virus from spreading to the Andes mosquitoes.

>>8662782
The use of Agrobacterium as a plasmid carrier for genetic engineering in plants.

File: yellowstone volcanoe.jpg (428KB, 1072x709px) Image search: [Google]

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The inner colors of the super-volcano at Yellowstone National Park are caused by thermophilic bacteria and cyanobacteria, a type of bacteria that obtains their energy through photosynthesis. Look at the first band outside of the middle—see that yellow color? That's thanks to a particular type of cyanobacteria, Synechococcus, that lives in that particular temperature band under extreme stressors. The temperature of that water is just barely cool enough to be habitable, at 165° F, but the bacteria prefer temperatures nearer to 149° F. But an abundance of light also introduces stress to the Synechococcus habitat.

>>8665115
Archean species as well

>>8662871
>Thiomargarita is a bacteria that is so big it can be seen with the naked eye.
What the fuck?

File: nambiensis.jpg (31KB, 430x319px) Image search: [Google]

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>>8665675
Thiomargarita namibiensis is the largest bacterium ever discovered, as a rule 0.1–0.3 mm in diameter, but sometimes attaining 0.75 mm.

>>8665115
While that mage is inside the caldera at Yellowstone, and shows the colors of a chromatic pool there, but it is not a view of the inner colors of the Yellowstone super volcano. Not the footpath across the top of the image for scale.

>>8662782
You have 10x more microbes than your human cells; so about 10-20% of your weight comes from microorganisms

>>8665689
No way dude thats crazy

>>8665954
It's true; one of the craziest exceptions in the world.

>>8665962
Do you work as a microbiologist?

>>8665971
Yes, and I'm getting my masters in a few months.

Recently researchers found a bacteria that has the ability to convert road dust into precious metal

In 2000, scientists were able to revive bacteria that had lain in suspended animation for 250 million years, encased in salt crystals deep in the Earth.

>>8662782
Staphylococcus aureus can literally degrade a host immune factor into something that fucks with other immune cells

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24233725

>>8665115
I just realized how do volcanic thermophiles' populations survive in an area which is essentially nuked every few hundred thousand years when the volcano erupts? I imagine they recolonize the area after it becomes habitable again, but how?