/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3945380]

can i get some names of really fucking awesome bacteria, whether interesting, dangerous as fuck or just fun. thanks guys!

[Anonymous No.3945393]

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

[Anonymous No.3945407]

Whatever they named the 20 centimeter wide mariana trench amoeba.

[Anonymous No.3945422]

Escherichia coli: lives in your arse, can be fatal, and it's amenable to genetic modification and biotech applications

Yersinia pestis: it killed around 100 million people in the middle ages like a boss

[Anonymous No.3945431]

Dictyostelium discoideum

>Around 20% of cells in Dictyostelium discoideum altruistically sacrifice themselves in the formation of the mature fruiting body

True altruism, fuck that human bullshit

[Anonymous No.3945444]

>>3945431
>sacrifice themselves
>implying conscious intent
>ignoring the "sacrifices" of countless cells in the human body to preserve the organism
>derping you softly

[Anonymous No.3945445]

Deinococcus radiodurans, aka Conan the bacterium

[Anonymous No.3945453]

>>3945444
>implying conscious intent
That's part of the point silly, any "conscious" being cannot seperate its bias and self interest, thus why it is true altruism.

And that is giving you an argument from charity accepting the vague concept of consciousness.

>ignoring the "sacrifices" of countless cells in the human body to preserve the organism

They get something out of killing themselves, the 20% of Dictyostelium discoideum don't.

[Zoologist !!d1rrJ+p+/nz No.3945470]

>>3945453

>Never heard of indirect fitness.

All of the cells within the slime mold share their genetic make-up. Because they divide by mitosis during their non-budding phase, they are essentially clones. The ones that go to form the fruiting body are no genetically different from the constituents than your sperm/egg cells are genetically different from you.

[Anonymous No.3945475]

>>3945470

You could be right, i haven't read on it in awhile, from memory i thought they were actually genetically different.

But it is still one badass bacteria, and it is also still altruistic.

[Anonymous No.3945476]

>>3945453
>They get something out of killing themselves, the 20% of Dictyostelium discoideum don't.

I was just being a tired dick, but now I want to know what the suicidal cells in my body get out of it that the D. discogods don't.

If you say something like "preservation of their genome", then I'll say that D. discogods are probably nearly genetically identical to their neighbors so it's essentially the same thing.

Also, you couldn't doubt your own consciousness if you weren't conscious. Deal with it, my would-be automaton.

[Anonymous No.3945477]

[Zoologist !!d1rrJ+p+/nz No.3945483]

>>3945475
>it is also still altruistic
Um, no. Not if the cells that are "sacrificing" are genetically identical to the cells that are producing the offspring. Inclusive/indirect fitness =! altruism.
(be back with some citations on this)

>>3945476
They probably get the same things out of it - indirect fitness.

[Anonymous No.3945486]

>biology
>hard science

[Zoologist !!d1rrJ+p+/nz No.3945500]

>>3945475
Holy crap. The government has a few websites dedicated to that little monster...
http://www.nih.gov/science/models/d_discoideum/
http://dictybase.org/genomeseq.htm
http://dictybase.org/tutorial/

Looks like they want to get it's whole genome in the database. Great candidate for a model organism, apparently, due to it's relative simplicity, but multiply-differentiated cells.
In non-bio jargon, they want to study this bad boy for it's potential to give us info about stem cells.

Looking further for stuff about the life cycle, and not about the awesome potential for D. discogod.

[Anonymous No.3945510]

>>3945483

I know wikipedia isn't the best source, but it does cite that it is altruism.
But so does the academic Oren Harman, that is where i first heard about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpJHxzenTI#t=1m46s

No need to appologise, i didn't expect much from a tripfag anyway.

[Zoologist !!d1rrJ+p+/nz No.3945522]

>>3945500
Everything seems to suggest the cells are genetically related.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/studies/invertebrates/dicty.html
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-092199-122025/unrestricted/NWMAINBODY.PDF

[Anonymous No.3945527]

>>3945522

Depends how genetically related they are i guess, and how we define altruism.

However we can both agree they are badass anyway~

[Zoologist !!d1rrJ+p+/nz No.3945530]

>>3945510
Cool being a facetious dick, bro.
True altruistic behavior is one in which one organism gains no fitness advantage. It might be "essentially" altruistic, and apparently kin selection is listed under altruistic behavior, even though there IS an indirect fitness component that any organism gains through helping its relatives...

[Zoologist !!d1rrJ+p+/nz No.3945537]

>>3945527
It DOES depend on how related they are. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection#Hamilton.27s_rule)) But all of the studies have to do with cellular differentiation, and there is no explicit mention of relatedness between individual cell constituents, so I am led to assume that it undergoes the typical life-cycle of diploid/haploid alteration of generations slime-molds. Which would make them pretty genetically similar.

They are badass, though. Wish I could be part of the genetics team trying to sequence them and determine the cell fates.

[Anonymous No.3945561]

>>3945445
guess you guys can't read latin. Deinococcus radiodurans is a radiation tolerant, vacuum tolerant, acid tolerant, dehydration tolerant, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans