Good advice from a great communicator. From now on, the majority of posts will relate in some way to bacteria, especially microbial genomics. Most of the remainder of posts will be related to science communication and education.
Why bother spreading the love for the little creatures? I believe this quote from microbialgenomics.energy.gov sums it up:
By some estimates, microbes make up about 60% of the earth’s biomass, yet less than 1% of microbial species have been identified. Because most do not cause disease in humans, animals, or plants and are difficult to culture, they have received little attention. Identifying and harnessing their unique capabilities will offer us new solutions to longstanding challenges in environmental and waste cleanup, energy production and use, medicine, industrial processes, agriculture, and other areas. Scientists also are starting to appreciate the role played by microbes in global climate processes, and we can expect insights about both the biological underpinnings of climate change and the contributions of microbes to earth’s biosphere. Their capabilities soon will be added to the list of traditional commercial uses for microbes in the brewing, baking, dairy, and other industries.
There is so much we don’t know about microbes. However, we are beginning to understand their enormous adaptability. Whether it is 30,000 feet above the ground or two miles beneath it, bacteria can inevitably survive. I will now focus on getting the word out about the little guys who can’t speak for themselves.
Microbes can be used in soil cleanup (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Related articles
- Can Hitchhiking Earth Microbes Thrive on Mars? (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
- Looking for Life in an Ancient Subsurface Lake [Life Lines] (scienceblogs.com)
- Short-Read Assembly of Full-Length 16S Amplicons Reveals Bacterial Diversity in Subsurface Sediments (plosone.org)
- MyTH: Week 2 bacteria focus organism: Azospirillum brasilense (mhrussel.wordpress.com)
- MyTH: A new weekly series about one bacterial species. First Post: Escherichia coli (mhrussel.wordpress.com)
- Hooray for Failure! It’s Science’s way of telling you you’re not being creative enough (mhrussel.wordpress.com)
- Day 295: Natural Selection – What does it Mean to be the Chosen Ones? (journey-of-lindsay.blogspot.com)
- Some Microbes Are So Resilient They Can Ride Hurricanes (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)
- What is in a genome? (mhrussel.wordpress.com)
- Soil Microbes Invisibly Shape Biodiversity (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
