Biology

Bacteria Chit Chat

This entry was posted in Biology Health Care on by

This may be common knowledge to you biologists but I, and I suspect many others, had no idea that those nifty and sometimes nasty little prokaryots could communicate amongst themselves and sometimes between species:

…the ability bacteria have to communicate across species using a small molecule called autoinducer-2 (AI-2). This simple sugar, produced by scores of microbes including Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Vibrio cholera, and several species of bioluminescent marine bacteria, allows bugs to assess the density of the local prokaryotic population and to adjust their behavior accordingly: throwing off light, spewing out toxins, or forming slimy biofilms.

Bonnie Bassler who is the expert on this stuff is working toward developing a broad-spectrum antibiotic based on these systems.

Cool!

Prepare for Aging or Prepare for Living?

This entry was posted in Biology Economics Longevity on by

I know my choice!

Nevertheless, the belief that aging is an immutable process, programmed by evolution, is now known to be wrong. In recent decades, our knowledge of how, why, and when aging processes take place has progressed so much that many scientists now believe that this line of research, if sufficently promoted, could benefit people alive today.Indeed, the science of aging has the potential to do what no drug, surgical procedure, or behavior modification can do-extend our years of youthful vigor and simultaneously postpone all the costly, disabling, and lethal conditions expressed at later ages.

These writers are on the modest end of gerontology research but even the programs they propose will do more to solve the problems with health care systems here and abroad than all the quibbling going on over how to get someone else to pay for your health care costs. Let’s earn the longevity dividend.

Read the rest here.

Sperm plus Egg….?

This entry was posted in Biology Science Sex on by

PZ answers the question:

“…scientifically speaking, when a sperm and egg comes together, what happens? Is death created?”

If fact, he provides answers from multiple perspectives: mathematical, patriarchal, cytological, forensical, genetical and developmental.
As an added bonus you also get the answer to this thought problem:

if a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic, who do you save — a Petri dish with five blastula or a two year-old child?.

I didn’t realize that this was even a possible issue but apparently it creates a challenge for some.

Oh yea, read the comment thread as well…always full of good material at PZ’s place.