How Bacterial Research Is Advancing Modern Science
Bacteria and microbes are versatile tools in life science research. Read about a few ways of how bacterial research helps modern science.
Bacteria influence the human body in many different ways. They help our body to digest food or influence the way we think and feel. Some bacteria can also make us sick, while other bacteria protect us from sickening bacteria. The ways bacteria impact our body are extremely fascinating and we would surely not work the way we do without our little friends.
Bacteria and microbes are versatile tools in life science research. Read about a few ways of how bacterial research helps modern science.
Bacteria in your gut microbiome help you digest your food, strengthen your immune system and keep you healthy. For this, your gut bacteria keep you free from gut pathogenic bacteria by fighting them with different weapons. Here, we explore some ways gut bacteria defend pathogens and how you can help them protect you.
Microbes and bacteria affect our lives in every possible way. This is why we should all learn more about these fascinating organisms and how to make the best of their impact. Here, I share with you my favourite books about microbes in which you learn how our amazing microbial friends influence your health, body and the environment and even shaped human history.
How often have you looked at your dirty hands and thought: “Better wash them to get rid of those bacteria!”. Actually, don’t rush to the nearest bathroom to wash them off. It turns out that every person always has bacteria on their hands. And these bacteria are part of everyone’s unique skin microbiome.
Some bacteria have special hair-like structures to connect to surfaces or other organisms. These bacterial pili help them move along that surface or pull themselves closer to a prey or host. Read about why bacteria need those pili when they are out hunting or infecting us.
The microbes in our gut produce many different metabolites that improve our health. Some of these can travel to the brain and influence our mood and emotions. Read on to find out how our gut microbiome influences our mental health.
Yogurt is a well-loved fermented dairy with lots of health benefits. It not only provides us with valuable proteins and immune-stimulating molecules, but can also carry probiotic organisms. Here, we will look at the advantages of adding yogurt to your diet plan and what bacteria have to do with producing this creamy white dream.
Bacteria swim through liquids with their flagella. Some bacteria even have two flagella at opposite ends that help them to swim through mucus and slime. This movement helps bacteria to infect the human body. Now, researchers start to better understand how these flagella work together to move the bacterium forward.
In bacterial battles, there is more than just direct killing. Some bacteria even fight by destroying the houses of their opponents. We could learn a lot from these bacterial wars for our own fights against bacterial superbugs.
Bacteria also don’t like being lonely and need to know they are not alone. And often they need to talk to other bacteria and interact with them. To do so, they use a mechanism called quorum sensing. Read on to find out more about this fascinating mechanism.
To fight nasty microorganisms, researchers need to come up with new strategies to develop vaccines. Turns out bacteria are extremely helpful to researchers, since they provide valuable tools.
Learn how researchers use bacteria to find new vaccines.
To overcome the medical problem of how drugs can reach a specific target within the body, researchers try to use new approaches. These are often based on bacteria or their products. Here, we will explore drug transport mechanisms for which we could use bacteria and their amazing superpowers.
When we eat plant products, we cannot always digest all their components. Instead, our gut bacteria love plant ploymers and start degrading and digesting them. And they share the leftover food with other bacteria, so that all of them together produce some very healthy molecules for us.
Scientists have found bacteria in our guts that degrade cholesterol. These bacteria can reduce our overall cholesterol levels and might have health benefits for us.
When bacteria enter our bodies, they encounter a whole range of stressful situations. However, some pathogens, like Salmonella, learned several clever ways to deal with these stresses. They manage to adapt to the changing temperature, pH and the reduced food available. This helps this bacterium to infect us and even make us sick.
The microbial world is super colorful and diverse.
Even though, we sometimes hear too many negative news articles about certain players of the microbial world, we should not forget about all the other interesting and helpful microbes.
To remind you that the microbial world consists of so many more players, we assembled this list of common and interesting microbes.
The differences between bacteria and viruses are based on their structure, size and reproduction. While bacteria are generally considered living organisms, viruses are not.
Your gut microbiome is full of helpful and fascinating bacteria. They all work together to keep you healthy, digest your food and fight off intruders. Here, you will learn about what a healthy gut microbiome is, what it does and how to keep it.
Bacteria can sense the iron concentration of their environment thanks to special iron transporters, of which they produce multiple.
Bacteria in your mouth protect your teeth from pathogenic bacteria. When you eat lots of sugars, the pathogens can fight off your friendly bacteria. The more pathogenic bacteria grow on your teeth, the more acids they produce that can cause caries and cavities. Learn about the bacterial battles in your mouths.
Bacteria influence the human body in many different ways. They help our body to digest food or influence the way we think and feel. Some bacteria can also make us sick, while other bacteria protect us from sickening bacteria. The ways bacteria impact our body are extremely fascinating and we would surely not work the way we do without our little friends.