Chemical Oxygen Demand Joke

 

So I made a double nerd joke! Call of duty joke combined with  chemical oxygen demand jokes. I love microbiology jokes.

Plant shooting funny

Well now I am kinda writing/drawing botany jokes too!
Stay tuned!
Tag: Botany Cartoon

Thiamine and Thymine Funny Comic

Microbiology helps in fighting toothdecay!

Personal Blog of IfuM

One of my classmates suggested that, "You should try finding out some organisms which degrades the calculus or tartar(white stuff which usually is formed on the teeth.) and later you can extract the enzyme responsible for this degradation and make mouthwash with it." And I said "You cannot cure tooth problems by microbiology, that IMPOSSIBLE!"

I have got teeth problems for a long time. I always used to wonder that whether microorganisms can be used to cure/heal all my teeth problems. Turns out there are ways in which scientists have been trying to achieve it.

What causes tooth decay? Bacteria are present on teeth. These bacteria convert sugar to lactic acid, sugar can be obtained from any source of food which you eat and it sticks/remains on your teeth. The lactic acid produced causes tooth decay.

Streptococcus mutans which is a facultatively anaerobic, Gram-positive coccus-shaped bacteria. It is most commonly found in the human oral cavity and is a significant contributor to tooth decay.

So a group of scientists have engineered a genetically mutated strain of Streptococcus which do not produce lactic acid. But you may think, what about the rest of the normal flora? no worries because this strain also produces antibiotics which kill/inhibit the lactic acid producing bacteria!

Genetically altered strain of S. mutans is also called SMaRT. It is engineered to have an advantage over native S. mutans strains. It produces minute amounts of a lantibiotic that kills off the native strains but leaves the SMaRT strain unharmed.

Dont get to excited though you may not get rid of toothbrush anytime soon (:

Fascinating microbes: Pseudomonas putida

I learned in my college that you cannot patient a microorganism which is present in nature, however you can patient an organism if you genetically mutate it. Well I found out that it's quite not true, after I stumbled upon a webpage containing info about Pseudomonas putida.

Pseudomonas putida is the first organism which is patented. After reading about it I discovered that it is quite an amazing microbe. And that is why I am adding it to my list of ‘fascinating microbes’.

Today polyaromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs are a nuisance as they are potent pollutants. They are found in soil, oily substances etc. The most common examples of these are anthracene and phenanthere. They were considered as non-biodegradable until P. putida comes into picture. Yes, it can degrade PAHs.

It has a very diverse metabolism. And this organism is put into use in areas like biodegradation, bioremediation and also in synthesis of biodegradable plastics.

Pseudomonas putida is a rod-shaped, nonsporeforming, gram-negative bacteria that utilizes aerobic metabolism. The good thing about this organism is that it does not cause any infections to human beings, yet.

This organism is my favorite organism, well, I kinda like anything that helps our environment. This organism  will be very helpful in future as the amount of pollutants are increasing rapidly.

As they say ‘one man can make a difference’, I say ‘one microbe can make a difference’ :]