Microbiology insight
Microbes are small, invisible to the eye, but number in trillions!
They can produce large quantities of end-products that the eye can see or the nose can smell! These end-products (eg. acids, flammable or toxic gases) can have a direct impact on the larger environment around them.
The microbially produced methane gas in lake sediments was collected and ignited in a fun exercise called the Volta Experiment. Different communities around the world use the flammable gas produced by these microbes for heat, cooking and conversion into electricity.
Microbes can also produce large amounts of other useful end-products or microbiological solutions for human society (eg. antibiotics, bioplastics, enzymes, bioremediation)
Some special equipment for studying anaerobic microbes
Anaerobic Glove Box
Gassing Station
These equipment allow researchers to mimic the environments of the microbes they are studying
Examples of some microbes and their shapes
Desulfovibrio desulfuricans strain IC1
Some microbiology vocabulary
MICROBES: Microbes are organisms which are too small for the naked eye to see. Their sizes are usually measured in micrometers. Microbes can be from the domain Archaea, Bacteria or Eukarya. Note: 1 micrometer is one million times shorter than 1 meter.
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DOMAINS (in the Woeseian tree of life): Classification of all life. There are three domains; Archaea. Bacteria and Eukarya.
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BACTERIA: This domain contains only microorganisms
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ARCHAEA: This domain also contains microorganisms that are very similar to Bacteria in size. However, they possess some traits not found in Bacteria.
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EUKARYA: This is where animals and plants are classified into. Many Eukarya are multicellular organisms. However, there are also microscopic multicellular or single celled eukaryotic microbes in this domain.
ANAEROBIC: In the absence of oxygen. Some environments with no oxygen: human large intestine, some lake sediments, oceanic dead zones, etc. An anaerobic organism is able to live without oxygen.
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AEROBIC: In the presence of oxygen. An aerobic organism requires oxygen to live.
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SYNTROPHY:​ A cooperation between two microbes to breakdown a chemical compound for food. Each individual microbe cannot break it down by itself and needs the help of the other.
EXTREMOPHILES​: Microbes that live in extreme conditions like extremely low or high temperatures, high acid conditions, high pressure conditions, extremely dry conditions, and other conditions which are unfavourable to humans
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MICROBIOME: An area with a unique sets of environmental conditions and inhabited by microbes adapted to those conditions.
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​DEAD ZONES: Areas in fresh or marine aquatic environments where the oxygen has been consumed by aerobic organisms. Dead zones are usually created due to polluting nutrients (eg. fertilisers or waste). At times, the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide will also be produced due to activities of sulfate reducing bacteria. As a result, a large die-off of plants, fish and other mammals will occur.
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END-PRODUCTS​:Any thing which a microbe(s) produce during, or at the end of growth. This can be antibiotics, a gas, enzymes, and of course, the cells themselves.
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