These images are part of a series of remarkable patterns that bacteria form when grown in a petri dish. While the colors
and shading are artistic additions, the image templates are actual colonies of tens of billions of these microorganisms.
The colony structures form as adaptive responses to laboratory-imposed stresses that mimic hostile environments faced
in nature. They illustrate the coping strategies that bacteria have learned to employ, strategies that involve cooperation
through communication. These selfsame strategies are used by the bacteria in their struggle to defeat our best antibiotics.
Thus, if we understand the mechanisms behind the patterns, we can learn how to outsmart the bacteria – for example, by
tampering with their communication – in our ongoing battle for our health.
The images come from the laboratory of Prof Eshel Ben-Jacob, of the Tel-Aviv University (http://star.tau.ac.il/~inon/
baccyber0.html) as part of a collaboration with Prof. Herbert Levine of UCSD’s National Science Foundation Frontier
Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (ctbp.ucsd.edu). The goal of this research is to unravel the adaptation secrets
enabling bacterial survival against all odds. Their efforts build upon progress in two disparate fi elds – pattern formation in
complex dynamical systems and the molecular biology and biophysics of bacteria.
pero yo sigo insistiendo que algun ayudante de laboratorio escucha Reggae…
whirlpool – Interactive DHTML art-demos
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