Microbes versus Orange; part two

Earlier this year ago I set up a timelapse looking at an orange in a jar, and just let it mould up. Then I made a vloggy video of it and put it on YouTube!

Now, way later than originally intended, I've finished to followup video so you can actually see what happens. Hooray!

366 Days of Friendly Bacteria; My First Year in Review

My blog is a year old! HOORAY! One year ago I posted the very first post; http://friendlybacteriablog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/ready-steady-blog.html

(Although the first post was posted on the 27th not the 28th, so I've made a mistake somewhere... or the leap year thing messes with my timetable or blogspot. Oh well!)

It's been a pretty huge year for me, not just because I occasionally ramble about bacteria on here, but in life generally. So here's my year in review; Year 1 of Friendly Bacteria!

Happy Heat; Making it through the 'Danger Zone'

I like the cold. Anything over twenty degrees is a bit too hot for me, and the extra heat from being in full sunlight drives me to skulk from one patch of shade to the next like I'm on a stealth mission 24/7. Other people relish the heat, actively seeking it out.

Everyone has their optimum temperature, and bacteria are no different! From Psychrophiles growing in the fridge, to Thermophiles living in volcanic vents under the sea, different bacteria tolerate different temperature ranges. So what does that mean for us?

Why Aren't We All Neck Deep in Bacteria?

Bacteria are pretty awesome. (Here's a bunch of cool things they can do, as written by me)

They can live pretty much anywhere. So... why don't they live everywhere? Why isn't the whole world covered in a deep layer of bacterial ooze? They can grow exponentially, so why don't they? Why can I freely type this blog post without having to shovel a path to my computer through a sludgey oozing mass?

#MeetThePhD 4: Sam Rowe; Shining Light on Bacterial Chemical Production

#MeetThePhD

The idea behind this is to showcase PhD students, give a bit of an idea of what’s going on out there in PhDland, and show to the world what PhD life is like! Perhaps they are thinking of doing a PhD themselves, or just generally want to know more about it. Or they’re already doing a PhD and want to see that they’re not alone in their struggles or successes!

While Friendly Bacteria is a vaguely microbiology-themed blog, for this series of mini-interviews I’m wanting any PhD student no matter the field! I think it will be a fun way to connect with other PhD students we wouldn’t normally be able to get to know, too.

If you’re a PhD student and want to get involved with this, leave a comment here, send me a DM on Twitter ( @friendlybugblog ) or shine the Bacteria-signal into the skies above Aberystwyth and I’ll send you the questions!

Previous ones are here: http://friendlybacteriablog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/meetthephd

Today we have Sam Rowe, using bacteria to tackle the fuel crisis in his PhD! Tweets to @samfrowe (or @friendlybugblog if you want me)

Step Into The Science Kitchen

I like analogies. They're great. I use the excuse that they make things easier to relate to and understand, but really it's because I find coming up with them really fun!

I love Community so much

My go-to analogy for the laboratory is that it's like a kitchen where you can't eat anything without getting horribly ill (like my parents' kitchen when mum's making cakes for people, #coeliaclife). I wanted to explore that today, with pictures from a real lab (my one) to help! Also because I don't have much time for the blog today and pictures each contribute 1000 words to the overall word count, or something like that.

#MeetThePhD 3: Robert Millar: Using Bacteria to turn Bark into Bite

The idea behind meet the PhD is to showcase PhD students, give a bit of an idea of what’s going on out there in PhDland, and show to the world what PhD life is like! Perhaps they are thinking of doing a PhD themselves, or just generally want to know more about it. Or they’re already doing a PhD and want to see that they’re not alone in their struggles or successes!

While Friendly Bacteria is a vaguely microbiology-themed blog, for this series of mini-interviews I’m wanting any PhD student no matter the field! I think it will be a fun way to connect with other PhD students we wouldn’t normally be able to get to know, too.

If you’re a PhD student and want to get involved with this, leave a comment here, send me a DM on Twitter ( @friendlybugblog ) or shine the Bacteria-signal into the skies above Aberystwyth and I’ll send you the questions!

Previous ones are here: http://friendlybacteriablog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/meetthephd

This time, we've got Robert Millar, a fellow bacteria-jockey, but from Warwick!

Bacteria; How do we Kill Them?

I like focusing on the friendly, useful bacteria, but there are some pretty mean nasty ones out there that cause horrible diseases, wipe out crops, contaminate my experiments, and generally ruin everyone's day. That's where exciting things like antibiotics, sterilising procedures and autoclaves come in; they are our weapons, killing these unwanted bacteria. But how do they work? How do we actually kill bacteria?

Did I Just Make Life? Following in Frankenstein's Footsteps

I don't mean travelling to the Arctic circle in search of revenge, (although lets not rule that out just yet) but rather building something living out of parts I dug up at midnight in a graveyard bought off Amazon. I am of course talking about building a computer, something I've never done before! I spent yesterday evening scratching my head at poorly translated instructions and peering intently at tiny wires. But that's not the point; the point is that in doing so I could relate a lot of what goes on in a computer to what goes on in a living cell, so thought I could shamelessly steal that as an analogy for this blog.

Spoilers; the answer to 'Did I just make life?' is definitely 'no'. But that's ok, because the journey is more important than the final answer sometimes!

She Sells Bacterial Cells on the Sea Shore; Marine Microbiology

Bacteria are everywhere! On Earth, at least. That includes land, air, and in the sea too! All seven of them. With animals, the ones living in the sea are pretty different to the ones on land; there aren't many tentacled land animals, for example! Most land animals wouldn't be too happy if you dropped them in the middle of the atlantic, and nearly all the fish would be similarly unhappy if you put them in the middle of a car park. Is it the same with bacteria? How have marine microbes evolved to survive and thrive in the deep?

This is the sea, in case you weren't sure! Taken from outside my house last week.

Fantastic Bacteria and Where to Find Them!

There are awesome animals in the world. There’s the big famous ones like elephants and eagles, and there’s the really weird ones nobody really hears about like the Mexican Mole Lizard or the Emerald Cockroach Wasp (and if you don’t know about them, look them up, they’re awesome!). But they are pretty hard to find; not just being elusive in their habitats, but in having limited habitats. Even animals like kangaroos that are quite prolific in their own habitat only cover a small percentage of the planet! There are loads of them, and they’re big enough to spot from a distance, but I won’t be seeing any in the wild unless I take a long journey. Bacteria, on the other hand, are everywhere! And you get some really awesome ones of them too, especially ones nobody ever hears about. They aren’t as big as kangaroos [citation needed] but if you know how to find them you can see some fantastic ones!

#OneMinuteMicrobiology

I’m apparently not satisfied with having a Blog, Twitter and YouTube, so got Instagram too, after this twitter conversation:

I was just throwing the idea of 1 minute videos out there, not even knowing that 1 minute is the Instagram video length limit, but it’s actually been really fun doing them! I’ve done a few so far (I’ll embed them at the bottom of this in case you have like four minutes to spare) and I’m having fun with it. It’s a big challenge, and I think once I run out of all the short basic things to cover it’ll get even harder (as things normally take days, not minutes!) but I love a challenge, and this one is pretty fun! And hopefully worthwhile if it gets more people thinking about microbiology stuff.

So far I haven’t really settled on a specific style, or level at which I’m pitching things, but I’m hoping to make it accessible to everyone no matter their background. Microbiology affects everyone, so everyone should know about it! It’s also really interesting and exciting but isn’t really thought of like that.

Also of course there’s my long-term selfish goal of gaining confidence by doing these videos and things. I’m already feeling some benefits but I’ve got a hugely long way to go!

Anyway, here are the videos I've made so far (with bonus new one I made today!):

And the new one...

I hope you like it! Subscribe to the YouTube for more, or follow my Instagram.

Xenobiology; Microbial life on other planets!

When we think of aliens we think of invaders from other worlds, Sigourney Weaver being badass and Arnold Schwarzenegger directing people towards waiting air transport (while also being badass). But, at least in our own solar system, it's most likely that any life we find out there will be microbial. This makes sense; they're much better at living in conditions different to the normal Earth ones! We may have warm jumpers and air conditioning, but there aren't many people who are happy to reproduce in acid lakes or at the bottom of the ocean in hydrothermal vents. Microbes 1, Humans 0.

So are we going to all get crazy space diseases if they come to Earth, much like the end of War of the Worlds when the aliens all get flu?

I'm not an expert in this, I just think it's a cool topic so wanted to write a post on it! There's a lot more to say so it might return in the future, like alien herpes.

Lions! Tigers! Bacillus thuringiensis...? Where are the snappy bacteria names?

In line with my earlier post (http://friendlybacteriablog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/speaking-science.html) on the scientific language and the barrier it imposes, even the names of microbes pose a problem for this. Especially as they're often a mix of Latin, Greek and Science, which just confuses everyone even more. We call Ursus arcticus a brown bear, Canis lupus familiaris a dog, but there aren't any easy familiar words for microbes. Apart from Yeast, the rockstar of the microbial world, things are either referred to by the name of the disease they cause or just by the long, hard-to-say binomial names. Is that fair?

Science is so ridiculously exciting!

I love it. I really do.

I just had a massive meeting with my whole supervisory team (which is quite a lot of people!) which I was terrified about beforehand. I was shaking like a leaf! But it wasn't a meeting with scary supervisors; it was a meeting with fellow scientists, who are all as excited about my project as I am! They just happen to be my supervisors/lab manager. (I do this every time! I get really scared until they remind me that we're all really happy enthusiastic scientists, and they're all lovely people!)

My Bacteria Senses are Tingling

Bacteria experience a completely different world to us. We see things on a comparatively huge scale, sampling the air with our noses, feeling the textures of surfaces  that it would take billions of bacteria to cover with a simple brush of the hand and taking in light of enough frequencies to form a detailed picture of the world. But what do bacteria see? How do they experience the world they inhabit?

Bacteria are just Tiny Pokémon!

Growing up, I was the right age to get hooked on Pokémon when it started getting crazy popular. I played the game boy games to death, I still have a huge box full of cards, and would get up early so I could watch the cartoon before school. That was years ago, but I'm still doing the same stuff: reading about special creatures, collecting them and sometimes forcing them to evolve. No, I'm not still a rabid Pokémon fan (although I do love a bit of Pokken tournament, and will be jumping on Pokémon Go as soon as I can), I'm just a microbiologist!

My creatures are bacteria, and I collect them in the minus eighty freezer. They have 'types', like the ice type (psychrophiles), fire type (thermophiles) and pretty much everything else too! I work with endophytes, bacteria that live in plants, so I guess that makes me a grass type trainer?

The more I think about it, the more it fits! Bacteria can produce electricity, can be magnetic, swim, fly and produce toxins. They fight, too; their 'moves' are antibiotics they produce to attack each other with. They constantly change, adapt and evolve. Each species has many different strains, all with different 'stats', just like different individual Pokémon.

And I get to gather them, study them, and use them for great things like helping plants grow! Does that make me a Pokémon trainer? I certainly hope so! That would look sweet on my C.V....

What do honeybees, chorizo, and silage have in common?

If you said 'Friendly Bacteria?', you're right! Insects, tasty sausage and fermented grass are all home to Lactic Acid Bacteria, a group of bacteria that, well, produce Lactic Acid.
So what are they, and what can they do for us?

It's Nothing Personal; Unfriendly Microbes

I am ill. Blegh. (Not serious, just a cold.)

It's times like this when you have to ask; why, tiny microbes? Why do you do this to me? What did I ever do to you?

...I mean, I've consigned goodness knows how many bacteria to a steamy autoclave-based death, but that wasn't personal!

Time for a training montage...

I'm really enjoying this whole science communication stuff. It's great fun! Writing this blog is pretty entertaining and keeps me getting involved in developments in the field of microbiology, and now I've got a taste for sci-comm I want to get more involved. There is one problem with that though... me.