General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

LeftofLarry
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

So as some of you know I work with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. One interesting thing to note about P. falciparum is that it is what you call an obligate intracellular parasite. What this means is that it has to live and grow inside a cell. In this case it lives and grows first inside your liver cells then in your red blood cells (which is the stage at which you actually get the symptoms of malaria). So here's an intersting notion..obligate intracellular parasites/organisms create a vacuole inside the cell; meaning they create their own environment in which they can live in. Obviously, the cytoplasm of the cell is unfavorable so they create their own little environment and have to develop a mechanism or a structure to which they can gather nutrients etc..from the cytoplasm of the host cell.

So...obviously there must be genes related to proteins that are used to develop these vacuoles, and mechanisms right??

Ok...so here's a very interesting note...P. falciparum is a parasite and a eukaryote, it is in the kingdom protista...it is not a prokaryotic bacteria. Eukaryotic cells and prokaryotic cells are very very different....but..here's a little interesting notion about evolutionary ancestry... there has been a gene discovered in Legionella (a prokaryotic bacteria) that is identical to a gene in P. falciparum. This shows that this gene is highly conserved in organims that are obligate intracellular parasites..which shows a very interesting evolutinary trend here. These genes are HIGHLY conserved, even in organisms that are soooo far apart...a prokaryote and a eukaryote. You see conservation of genes all the time, but to see this...in not only a different species but a different kingdom all together... I've posed the question that this may be due to convergent evolution, however, the high level of conservation within the gene...is too astounding...

Just an interesting evolutionary note...

Oh, and one more thing...can someone show me where in teh bible it talks about glacial lakes and how a whole separate ecosystem using chemotrophic bacteria as opposed to phototrophic has developed underneath the ice sheet in Antartica..and...what exactly is god's plan for this ecosystem.... anyone? anyone?

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PipetPersonJ
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

I was highly impressed to find a posting on here about Micro...it's actually what made me join. I'm a senior level Bio major (Micro. conc) and the one piece of technology that continually reinforces evolution to me is the NCBI's BLAST ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/ for those of you who are interested) search feature, it may only deal with sequences (DNA, RNA, amino acid) but very interesting none the less. We deal with it all the time in our Biotech class and the degrees of homology between very different organisms never ceases to amaze me. Also as an interesting side note, On one of the boards I saw that you were discussing using selective media to essentially "evolve" an organism. I ran into the strangest selective media the other day in Environmental Micro., Motor Oil Agar. No shit, it's 10W-30 and very highly flammable.


Yellow_Number_Five
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

Welcome Pipet, I'm a micro geek myself Laughing out loud


PipetPersonJ
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

You'll appraciate this then, the other day I was walking to our Bio building on campus when a pseudo-Mennonite handed me a pamphlet by an M.D that said that antibiotic resistant bacteria don't exist because we keep developing new antibiotics (I didn't have the time to debate him on the fact that that makes no sense what so ever), so I asked him if he would like to drink some Lb broth filled with E. coli transformed with plasmids with Amp-r selectable markers (It was an extra lab specimen we were using to isolate a yeast gene in Biotech, so it wouldn't have done a damn thing to him anyway.). I told him I would give him some ampicillin to treat the infection, but for some reason he didn't want to take me up on this. I guess his common sense overruled his annoyingly evangelical faith. He stopped talking to me after I asked him why harrassing college students was more important for his children then getting an education (he brought 7 of his 9 children to a college campus for about 9 hours that day).


LeftofLarry
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

PipetPersonJ wrote:
I was highly impressed to find a posting on here about Micro...it's actually what made me join. I'm a senior level Bio major (Micro. conc) and the one piece of technology that continually reinforces evolution to me is the NCBI's BLAST ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/ for those of you who are interested) search feature, it may only deal with sequences (DNA, RNA, amino acid) but very interesting none the less. We deal with it all the time in our Biotech class and the degrees of homology between very different organisms never ceases to amaze me. Also as an interesting side note, On one of the boards I saw that you were discussing using selective media to essentially "evolve" an organism. I ran into the strangest selective media the other day in Environmental Micro., Motor Oil Agar. No shit, it's 10W-30 and very highly flammable.

AMEN..hahah welcome PipetPerson....it's good to have you here to help Yellow Number 5 refute creation claims, on a scientific level. This is good stuff...so you say Motor Oil Agar eh??? hahahahah damn what was growin on this stuff?

Also, this may lead to a discussion on bioremediation. Interesting....

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PipetPersonJ
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

well it was designed by my env. micro. teacher so that he could try to isolate more organisms that can naturally metabolize hydrocarbons. You would be amazed at the shit in normal garden soil that will grow in high concentrations of motor oil. He just used it in one of our labs to show us the extremely high variety of M.O.'s in soil. I'll help in any way I can. I've tried to be a low-key atheist for awhile now (living in the bible-belt and all), but I'm tired of being a silent minority.


LeftofLarry
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

PipetPersonJ wrote:
well it was designed by my env. micro. teacher so that he could try to isolate more organisms that can naturally metabolize hydrocarbons. You would be amazed at the shit in normal garden soil that will grow in high concentrations of motor oil. He just used it in one of our labs to show us the extremely high variety of M.O.'s in soil. I'll help in any way I can. I've tried to be a low-key atheist for awhile now (living in the bible-belt and all), but I'm tired of being a silent minority.

Brotha, I know how you feel, I too live within the outskirts of the bible belt. Richmond, Va. Where are you from?

Also, have you done much studying with bioremediation. It's amazing how alternative metabolisms that some bacteria have can break down fuel, TCE's, etc.. Cool shit...I guess god, then had TCE's and Oil and Fuel back when he made the earth..ALONG with the microbes in the world..even the emerging disease microbes.. hahaha

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PipetPersonJ
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

I'm in the buckle of the bible belt - Nashville. More churches per capita than guns....


LeftofLarry
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PipetPersonJ wrote:
I'm in the buckle of the bible belt - Nashville. More churches per capita than guns....

yes you are...hahaha....luckily Richmond is a safe haven from the sorrounding areas. However, yeah...we need more people like us infiltrating the bible belt.

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PipetPersonJ
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General Evolution, Science, Microbiology

sorry I've been gone so long guys, I experienced something else Tn is famous for....Drunk drivers. My gf and I got hit by a drunken 17 yr old without a license and now the kids insurance company is trying to tell us it wasn't his fault....only a fundy could believe horse shit like that.....sorry I've been a tad irritated the last few days. I just came on here to tell you guys the truely annoying thing about all this (you all being one of the few groups of people that would understand). Immediately before the kid hit us I (from the passenger's seat) see him coming and pull myself onto the middle console and scream "Oh, Shit" causing my gf to swerve away from whatever I was "Oh, Shit"-ing about. If I hadn't done that i would very likely be seriously injured (he t-boned my door), but as it stands I walked away with a sore shoulder. Now here's the annoying part: Everyone I tell this story to tries to tell me that god was looking out for me in that I wasn't seriously injured. I tell them that I was looking out for me and that's why I'm not injured, god had nothing to do with it; because if he did he would have been much better served seeing that my very sweet and cute gf (who is a xtian) was uninjured (she hurt her knee and thigh). After about 10 people had this conversation with me I just stopped talking to people about the accident b/c I was being told that I wasn't being sensitive. I asked a couple of them why a god would spare me injury but hurt one of his own followers, all I got from that was the god has a plan schpeil. That just seems like bad marketing to me....Sorry to take up so much space, I just needed somewhere to rant.