Microbiologists are also romantics

"Isn't this beautiful?... I don't know; Maybe I'm a romantic."
--Dr. Roberto Kolter, Harvard Med

That's what the visiting speaker said yesterday during his talk. He was talking about that bacteria (Bacillus subtilis) above and I agree with him. I've mentioned previously that I find science beautiful. The organisms we study, the process of learning about them, and the complex way in which all of the biochemical processes combine to produce a living, functioning system; it's amazing and totally beautiful. Here are a few of my favorites.

Fruit fly eyes. If I had to pick my favorite organ, regardless of species, it would be the eye. They're just cool and ridiculously complex. And there are tons of mutations that cause variations on color in fruit flies. These eyes are red which is wildtype (typical) for fruit flies.




C. elegans. Otherwise known as microscopic round worms. I spent a whole summer working with these little guys and got kind of attached to them. They eat bacteria and you can only see them under a microscope. They're transparent so you can see all of their organs inside; those round things in the middle are eggs. The head is on the right. They make a squiggle pattern across the plate as they move (think a snake in sand.)


This is the nucleus of a cell (where the DNA is). Each of those colored splotches is a different chromosome. Your chromosomes are organized within the nucleus exactly the same way in every cell (ie chromosome 2 is always beside chromosome 7, etc). This has important implications for DNA replication, repair and segregation. Isn't that cool?! I think that's cool.




Most of the colorful pictures that you see in microbiology are falsely colored (like the nucleus pic above). The scientists use fluorescent probes to label the components that they want to see to make them easier to study. Not these guys. This is a type of bacteria called Vibrio harveyi. It's luminescent. That blue light you see is made by the bacteria. The cells are all communicating with each other and once they reach a certain cell concentration (quorum) the signal gets sent to turn on the light. For V. harveyi it's not such a big deal, although pretty nonetheless. But in other types of bacteria this kind of signaling is directly related to infection and pathogenesis.

And last, but certainly not least: fungi. Not quite microbiology... but near and dear to my heart. I usually blame my interest in fungi on my time working in the Zolan lab, but really I think it began long before that. My uncle and I used to go mushroom hunting out in the woods by my grandparents house. At the time he was big into mycology and taught me a lot. So here's a video which some of you have probably seen before... and I promise, once you get past the slime mold part it's not as gross. :)

[God] composes some of [His] loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope. -edited from a quote from Theodore Roszak