What you're looking at is the art of bacterial adaptation. It's beautiful. It should also make you a little uncomfortable, and a little hopeful. Part of a collaboration between Professor Eshel Ben-Jacob, of Tel-Aviv University, and Professor Herbert Levine of UCSDs National Science Foundation Frontier Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, these pictures are a visual representation of the way bacteria evolve to overcome life-threatening obstacles---like, say, hand gel. The art is also about the way bacteria fight back, which involves a form of communication. The researchers hope to use that skill against the bacteria to create a new generation of antibacterial weaponry.
While the colors and shading are artistic additions, the image templates are actual colonies of tens of billions of these microorganisms. The colony structures form as adaptive responses to laboratory-imposed stresses that mimic hostile environments faced in nature. They illustrate the coping strategies that bacteria have learned to employ, strategies that involve cooperation through communication. These selfsame strategies are used by the bacteria in their struggle to defeat our best antibiotics. Thus, if we understand the mechanisms behind the patterns, we can learn how to outsmart the bacteria - for example, by tampering with their communication - in our ongoing battle for our health.
The once controversial idea that bacteria cooperate to solve challenges has become commonplace, with the discovery of specific channels of communication between the cells and specific mechanisms facilitating the exchange of genetic information. Retrospectively, these capabilities should not have been seen as so surprising, as bacteria set the stage for all life on Earth and indeed invented most of the processes of biology. As we try to stay ahead of the disease-causing varieties of these versatile creatures, we must use our own intelligence to understand them.
See more by following the link to Prof. Ben-Jacob's site.
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ah... As a frenchman, I can tell you : we always knew that too much hygiene kills hygiene ;D
The bacteria in our guts are fully equipped to apply operant conditioning, and to manufacture psychoactive chemicals to manage the behavior of their host to their own apparent benefit, and the possible detriment of their host.
It is possible that the benefits of probiotics arise from upsetting the population dynamics of gut flora, interfering with their cooperation and rendering their attempts at manipulation chaotic.
That is all.
Alcohol is the active ingredient in hand gel. It destroys the outer covering of the bacteria. I'm not sure that bacteria can evolve around that. Anybody know?
Don't know about that, Geeka. I would assume that they could, since the whole thing is that, occasionally, a bacteria or two survives the onslaught and passes its strength on to its offspring. Though, even if they can, I don't know whether that would affect our ability to use antibiotics in situations where they're really needed...which is the big problem with the non-alcohol antibacterial stuff. It's a good question.
But I do know that I've definitely seen hand gels with antibacterial agents besides alcohol in them. I look at the labels pretty closely before I use them, anymore.
To fight the bug, we must understand the bug
Yeast produce alcohol and they survive it along with bacteria (to a point). Seems to be a matter of concentration.
I'm pretty sure that the only thing we're worried about them coping with is antibiotics. Antibiotics are more or less specialized, while hand gel simple dissolves the outer layer of ANY cell, regardless. In fact, hand sanitizer can make your hands prone to drying out and getting infected (with extreme overuse) by obliterating the top layer skin cells and exposing the more sensitive layers.
I have been told, by a biologist friend, that bacteria can evolve to be alcohol resistant. However they quickly lose the ability again, once out of an alcohol rich environment since there is a heavy cost to being resistant. Take that for what it's worth of course, being second hand info and all.
Fortunately, many hand sanitizers add in a bit of aloe or something like it. Takes the edge right off. Necessary in settings where you _must_ handwash or sanitize frequently.
I, for one, welcome our bacterial overlords, and will provide them with petri dishes brimming over with whatever brand of agar is their favorite. (Please don't kill me, rapidly evolving, benevolent rulers!)
Photo reminds me of the FSM, albeit with just the one meatball.
Bacteria do not develop resistance to every compound. There is convincing evidence that bacteria do not develop resistance to triclosan, the active ingredient in many antibacterial products.
Ignorance is no excuse for fear-mongering over marketing terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triclosan#Resistance_concerns
There are very few yeasts that can survive an alcohol concentration above about 18%. Anything higher than that is achieved through distillation. Health organizations suggest that alcohol-based sanitizers must be at least 60% to be effective.
So yes, it is a matter of concentration.
You are absolutely right. How cool is that? Wait, is that nature imitating art or art imitating nature?
A few things:
First, from the Wikipedia article someone linked to above, "Some level of triclosan resistance can occur in some microorganisms, but the larger concern is with the potential for cross-resistance or co-resistance to other antimicrobials. Studies investigating this possibility have been limited." The cited source is:
Yazdankhah SP, Scheie AA, Høiby EA, et al. (2006). "Triclosan and antimicrobial resistance in bacteria: an overview". Microb. Drug Resist. 12 (2): 83–90. doi:10.1089/mdr.2006.12.83. PMID 16922622.
That said, of course microbes can survive high concentrations of alcohol. There are probably very few conditions that we can readily synthesize that will kill all bacteria, and certainly almost none that wipe out all micro-fauna/flora spores.
The reason that we don't worry about this is energy costs, specifically those of the micro-organisms. Germs that make humans sick need to be capable (in most cases) of surviving in a host human (ignoring botulism and the like for the moment). These bacteria are therefore not well suited to human-hostile environments (e.g. vacuum, high levels of heat or radiation and various toxins that the human body filters out such as alcohol). By the same token, microbes that are adapted to such environments are not well suited to survive in humans on the whole.
The risk that we run by constantly sanitizing (not just washing, but sanitizing) is to create an ecosystem which favors organisms which spend a large amount of growth and reproductive energy on adaptations for both sorts of environments.