Comedy | October 09, 2009 | Comment on this video (10)

Are we smarter than bacteria?

loupetho
Are we that much different from any other life form? Do we all meet the same fate?
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    Green,   Comedy,   Current Tonight,   VC2 Top Contenders US,   1 more
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    Green,  Environment,  Animation,  Bacteria,  1 more
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10 comments // Are we smarter than bacteria? // Video

  • JollyGoodFelon
  • Ricky84
  • loupetho
    • 0
      loupetho  
    • Ricky84:

      Interesting video, and yes we could all live in Texas, but we don't and for humans to keep breeding we need more and more resources. In other words, for there to be more us there has to be less of everything else.

      Plus, more of us wanting more of the same things means resource wars. Yes you can play with maths and keep breeding but the results are pretty clear.

      And besides ... what is the interest in continually breeding. Wouldn't you like variety of life on earth?

    • 2 years ago
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  

    • No.

      Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria "talk" to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry -- and our understanding of ourselves.

      Why you should listen to her:

      In 2002, bearing her microscope on a microbe that lives in the gut of fish, Bonnie Bassler isolated an elusive molecule called AI-2, and uncovered the mechanism behind mysterious behavior called quorum sensing -- or bacterial communication. She showed that bacterial chatter is hardly exceptional or anomolous behavior, as was once thought -- and in fact, most bacteria do it, and most do it all the time. (She calls the signaling molecules "bacterial Esperanto.")

      The discovery shows how cell populations use chemical powwows to stage attacks, evade immune systems and forge slimy defenses called biofilms. For that, she's won a MacArthur "genius" grant -- and is giving new hope to frustrated pharmacos seeking new weapons against drug-resistant superbugs.

      Bassler teaches molecular biology at Princeton, where she continues her years-long study of V. harveyi, one such social microbe that is mainly responsible for glow-in-the-dark sushi. She also teaches aerobics at the YMCA.

      "She's really the one who's shown that this is something that all these bacteria are doing all the time. And if we want to understand them, we have to understand quorum sensing."

      Ned Wingreen, Princeton, on Nova ScienceNOW

    • 2 years ago
  • loupetho
  • stephenthomson
  • loupetho
  • loupetho
    • 0
      loupetho  

    • Thanks, it's just a general question I guess. We like to think that we are above from the rest of the animal kingdom because of our superior intellect, but despite this do we follow the simple rules of nature such as feed and breed until something else stops us. We are smart enough to see what is going on but can our will power overcome primitive urges.

    • 2 years ago
  • EdJoyProductions
    • 0
      EdJoyProductions  
    • loupetho:

      That superior intellect just makes a good portion of the population more dangerous because it is not superior enough to evolve. But we are all in this petri dish together. :) We try to make the best of it.

    • 2 years ago
  • EdJoyProductions
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