Exploitation Nation: Cheating Microbes, Parasites, and Your Colon
March 11th, 2010 Editor's Selections 2 Comments
Jarrett Byrnes focuses on posts in ecology, environmental sciences, and evolution. He blogs at I’m a chordata, urochordata!
- Thoughtomics discussed the tricky strategies of cheating bacteria. Rule #1 – never play poker with Pseudomonas.
- We often think of of plants as passive recipients of all the grazers, parasites, hail, wind and rain that the world heaps on them. Not so much, it would seem. Goldenrod plants can change their growth-form stopping a plant parasite in its tracks. A leaf is not a leaf is not a leaf.
- There is a lot of information in the genomes of our gut bacteria. How much? New work plumbs the depths of terra excreta and finds a dizzying array of diversity. Not only that, but the genome of your gut bacteria relate directly to your health.
