biofilms!
- Thread starter fishorama
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GoldLenny
Senior Member? Do I get a 5% disc.?
Lenny, I DID say it was interesting in my first post:silly:
... Actually I like the drawings for showing how biofilms form, the pics are a little gross :yuck: but still quite interesting. Maybe only to science fans
Don't try to crawfish out of your biofilm fetish now! LOL
You said biofilms were fascinating and then you followed up by saying the article was interesting. Just admit it... you're a biofilm geek! LOL
I hear there are BA (Biofilm Anonymous) meetings though.
Here are a couple of nitrifying biofilms from aquaria.
The first one is the ammonia-oxidizers are strained green and the nitrite-oxidizers are red. The fussiness you see around the cells in the EPS - exopolymer substance the article discusses. This technique is, appropriately, called FISH! for Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization.
This one is 100% nitrospira bacteria
The first one is the ammonia-oxidizers are strained green and the nitrite-oxidizers are red. The fussiness you see around the cells in the EPS - exopolymer substance the article discusses. This technique is, appropriately, called FISH! for Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization.
This one is 100% nitrospira bacteria
i made it half way through that article last night... twice. the wifey started bugging me and i couldn't finish reading through. i have it bookmarked for now. thanks fishorama, interesting stuff.
GoldLenny
Senior Member? Do I get a 5% disc.?
Now that's better... I expected Dr. Tim to be a bacteria geek! LOL
UH OH... I guess I'm fired now!
Oh wait... He can't fire me since I don't work for him! LOL
UH OH... I guess I'm fired now!
Oh wait... He can't fire me since I don't work for him! LOL
The article kind of an intense layman's read but I'm sure Tim's theses would make us cross eyed, lol. My husband's a chemist, was ag now pharma so with that & my fish, botany & bird hospital lingo I kinda get it easier than some might. Plus I've read it before...I have many forms of geekiness & proud of (most) of them.
What you don't want to read about 16s rRNA probing and PCR and clone library development! Unbelievable 
The most interest part of the article is towards the end where the authors start to talk about quorum sensing (QS). Not all bacteria QS but one of the first to be discovered that do are Nitrososomas - they are to a certain extent the 'lab rat' of QS. The other most studied bacteria that QS are the bacteria that live in the flashlight fish - when they 'flash' that is QS!
Why is that important? Well it probably isn't for aquarium but there are biotech companies funded in the millions of dollars trying to figure out how to turn QS off. Because if you can turn QS off you might be able to stop a human disease from occurring even though the patience is full of the pathogenic bacteria.
Even the great Stephen Jay Gould concede that bacteria rule the world - I guess size doesn't matter, sometimes
The most interest part of the article is towards the end where the authors start to talk about quorum sensing (QS). Not all bacteria QS but one of the first to be discovered that do are Nitrososomas - they are to a certain extent the 'lab rat' of QS. The other most studied bacteria that QS are the bacteria that live in the flashlight fish - when they 'flash' that is QS!
Why is that important? Well it probably isn't for aquarium but there are biotech companies funded in the millions of dollars trying to figure out how to turn QS off. Because if you can turn QS off you might be able to stop a human disease from occurring even though the patience is full of the pathogenic bacteria.
Even the great Stephen Jay Gould concede that bacteria rule the world - I guess size doesn't matter, sometimes
I'd forgotten about flashlight fish bacteria 
I didn't realize that it's the same as QS, good stuff.
I'm a Stephen Jay Gould fan too :tombstone:
I didn't realize that it's the same as QS, good stuff.I'm a Stephen Jay Gould fan too :tombstone:
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