Bacteria - Tumblr Posts
Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible. The acidity, low moisture content, and natural preservatives in honey create an environment that prevents bacteria and microorganisms from growing, making it one of the only foods that doesn't spoil.
Osteoporosis, affecting over a third of women aged 50 and above and 200 million people globally, is a major health concern with potential annual costs exceeding $25 billion by 2025. A recent study in Nature Communications links osteoporosis to the gut bacteria Bacteroides vulgatus, which suppresses the production of valeric acid. This short-chain fatty acid is essential for maintaining bone density, and its reduction may contribute to increased bone resorption, leading to brittle bones and osteoporosis.
via Does gut bacteria cause osteoporosis?
400x, assumed young Daphnia exoskeleton. Absolutely covered in bacteria
©️nonotnow photography.
~microscope: biolam r11~
Tilia
©️nonotnow photography.
🔬~microscope: biolam r11~
📸Helios 44-2 58mm, f/2
📸iPhone 11
Hydra (genus)
©️nonotnow photography.
🔬~microscope: biolam r11~
📸iPhone 11
transcription:
"what doesn't kill you
mutates and tries again"
transcription:
"what you see thru the microscope
what the bacteria sees"
Today in ‘things I couldn’t post during computer trouble’, cell diagrams! I was working on the sort of diagrams I remember from school, so I tried plant and animal cells at the two levels of detail you’d see at GCSE and A Level here in the UK, and a virus and bacterium for good measure. I’d like to also try a more 3D approach, as they’re getting more popular in textbooks.
Hunter Cole - Artist and Geneticist
Cole grows the bacteria in a liquid culture, and then uses the culture as her paint, applying it to a gelatinous augur in a petri dish, as if the augur were a canvas. When applied, the culture is clear, but over a 24 hour period it slowly begins to glow, becoming more visible. For the two weeks following the culture’s application, as the bacteria grows and dies, the drawing changes.
These are the just cutest microbes! Taken from the io9 article: Your Body is an Ecosystem
The importance of microbial diversity in gut health and disease
"Using novel metagenomic approaches, scientists are at last beginning to characterize the taxonomic abundance and community relationships not only of bacteria, but also the other microbes that inhabit the gut environment,"1 says Professor Gary Wu, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. “This exciting work is bringing us one step closer to understanding the importance of microbial diversity in intestinal health and disease and could ultimately lead to new ways of diagnosing and treating gastrointestinal (GI) disease.”
His talk was one of the topics presented at the Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit in Miami, FL, USA. On March 8-9, 2014, internationally leading experts discussed the latest advances in gut microbiota research and its impact on health.
Ancylostoma caninum, a type of en:hookworm, attached to the intestinal mucosa. Source:CDC’s Public Health Image Library Image #5205
Last print in my cell anatomy series. Whether you love science or you know a little scientist to be, this poster is a cute and informative way to learn about the the smallest unit of life: The cell! A great tool to get kids excited, ask questions and learn about cellular anatomy.
Print available here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/170317072/inside-the-bacteria-cell-anatomy-poster
David Goodsell of the Scripps Research Institute does amazing illustrations portraying various organisms and biological molecules. Top: Overall structure of an Mycoplasma mycoides, a bacteria that causes lung disease in ruminants. Bottom Right: Cross section of Escherichia coli, a common bacteria that sometimes causes food poisoning, showing a flagellum, ribosomes/tRNA, miscellaneous enzymes and the nucleoid. Bottom Left: HIV in blood serum being attacked by antibodies.
source: http://mgl.scripps.edu/people/goodsell/illustration/index.html
Baleen whales’ digestive tract resembles that of both carnivores and herbivores
Baleen whales are the largest animals on our planet, and they live by eating the tiniest. These whales survive on copepods, krill, and small fish, and must eat massive amounts in order to gain and maintain their weight. Research into right whales’ microbiome – the community of microbes that live in an animal’s guts and helps it process its food – has found a unique feature that helps baleen whales make the most out of their diets: their microbiome includes bacteria found in both carnivores’ and ruminant herbivores’ digestive systems, allowing the whales to digest both meat and crustaceans’ chitin-rich shells.
This research began when the study’s second author, graduate student Annabel Beichman, collected fecal samples of right whales with the University of Vermont’s Joe Roman. Still an undergraduate at the time, Beichman hoped to use DNA sequencing technology to aid conservation research. The fecal samples she and Roman collected gave them information about what sort of microbes were present in the whales’ digestive tracts. After extracting and sequencing DNA from the samples, they found that the microbes present resembled those of meat-eating predators and, unexpectedly, cows.
The anaerobic bacteria found in the guts of cattle help break down cellulose, allowing the cattle to get the most out of their plant-based diet. Baleen whales’ diets contain very little cellulose, but they do contain large amounts of chitin. In fact, the chitin-rich shells of copepods and other crustaceans make up as much as 10% of baleen whales’ diets. Without a microbial community that could help digest the chitin, the whales could only expel the shells, losing all of the potential nutrients locked in them.
While researchers were, until now, unaware that baleen whales’ microbiomes partially resemble the microbiomes of cows, they did know that whales’ digestive anatomy features a multi-chambered foregut like that found in their ruminant cousins. (Whales share common ancestors with, and are related to, cattle and other terrestrial ruminants.) Many researchers had believed that this foregut was purely vestigial and served no real purpose in the whales’ lives, but the dual microbiome suggests otherwise. The chitin-digesting anaerobic bacteria likely thrive in this foregut.
This dual microbiome gives whales a unique evolutionary advantage by allowing them to maximize their energy intake when feeding, and may therefore have played a key role in making whales one of the most successful groups of animals in the oceans. This evolutionary advantage is likely why the foregut was maintained even as whales’ environment and diet began to diverge drastically from those of their cousins.
The researchers involved in this study hope to continue sampling baleen whales’ microbiomes, and to extend their research to the microbiomes of toothed whales, whose diets have very little chitin. When we know more about the microbiomes of toothed whales, we may also be able to better care for the toothed whales in captivity.
Based on materials provided by Harvard University
Image credit: Peter Duley, NOAA
Journal reference: Jon G. Sanders, Annabel C. Beichman, Joe Roman, Jarrod J. Scott, David Emerson, James J. McCarthy, Peter R. Girguis. Baleen whales host a unique gut microbiome with similarities to both carnivores and herbivores. Nature Communications, 2015; 6: 8285 DOI:10.1038/ncomms9285
Submitted by volk-morya