Allies and Enemies How the World Depends on Bacteria

by Maczulak, Anne

• ISBN13: 9780137015467
• ISBN10: 0137015461
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-12
• Publisher: Ft Pr

Summary

Self-sufficient, invisible, mysterious, deadly - and absolutely essential for all life,including you. Theyrs"re the Earthrs"s bacteria, and theyrs"ve been here forfour billion years. No other living thing combines their elegant simplicity with their incredibly complex role: bacteria keep us alive, supply our food, and regulate our biosphere. We canrs"t live a day without them, and no chemical, antibiotic, or irradiation has ever successfully eradicated them. Wers"re hopelessly outnumbered by bacteria: there are at least ten times as many bacterial cells in and on your body as there are human cells. Theyrs"re our partners, like it or not, even though some of them will happily kill us.Allies and Enemies: How the World Depends on Bacteria tells the story of the amazing, intimate partnership. Authored by Anne Maczulak, a microbiologist whors"s hunted and worked with an extraordinary array of bacteria, it offers a powerful new perspective on Earthrs"s oldest creatures. Yours"ll discover how bacteria work, how they evolve, their surprising contributions and uses, and the roles theyrs"ve played in human history. No form of life is more important and in Anne Maczulakrs"s hands, no form of life is more fascinating

Author Biography

Anne Maczulak grew up in Watchung, New Jersey, with a plan to become either a writer or a biologist. She completed undergraduate and master’s studies in animal nutrition at The Ohio State University, her doctorate nutrition and microbiology from the University of Kentucky, and conducted postdoctoral studies at the New York State Department of Health. She also holds an MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

 

Anne began her training as a microbiologist studying the bacteria and protozoa of human and animal digestive tracts. She is one of a relatively small group of microbiologists who were trained in the Hungate method of culturing anaerobic microbes, meaning microbes that cannot live if exposed to oxygen. In industry, Anne worked in microbiology laboratories at Fortune 500 companies, developing anti-dandruff shampoos, deodorants, water purifiers, drain openers, septic tank cleaners, and disinfectants--all products that relate to the world of microbes. She conducted research in the University of California-San Francisco’s dermatology group, testing wound-healing medications, antimicrobial soaps, and foot fungus treatments.

 

In graduate school, other students and a few professors had seemed nonplussed when Anne filled her elective schedule with literature courses. Anne was equally surprised to learn that so many of her peers in science found pursuit of the arts to be folly. In 1992, with more than a decade of “growing bugs” on her resume, she packed up and drove from the east coast to California to begin a new career as a writer while keeping microbiology her day job. And yes, it was possible to be both a writer and a scientist.

 

While toiling evenings on a mystery novel set in a microbiology lab, Anne continued working on various laboratory projects intended either to utilize good microbes or eliminate deadly ones. A decade later, Anne began her career as an independent consultant and has successfully blended writing with biology. Although the mystery novel never made it off the ground, Anne has since published ten books on microbes and environmental science. She focuses on making highly technical subjects easy to understand. From her unique perspective, Anne inspires her audiences into wanting to know more about microbes, and perhaps even like them.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. viii
About the Author	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Why the world needs bacteria	p. 7
Tricks in bacterial survival	p. 9
Bacterial communities	p. 13
Under the microscope	p. 16
The size of life	p. 20
The bacteria of the human body	p. 25
The origins of our bacteria	p. 29
One planet	p. 32
Bacteria in history	p. 35
The ancients	p. 37
The legacy of bacterial pathogens	p. 39
The plague	p. 42
Microbiologists save the day	p. 46
Unheralded heroes of bacteriology	p. 50
On the front	p. 58
"Humans defeat germs!" (but not for long)	p. 63
What is an antibiotic?	p. 64
Inventing drugs is like making sausage	p. 68
Mutant wars	p. 73
Bacteria share their DNA	p. 77
The opportunists	p. 78
Bacteria in popular culture	p. 83
Bacteria and art	p. 83
Bacteria in the performing arts	p. 84
Friends and enemies	p. 89
Do bacteria devour art?	p. 91
An entire industry from a single cell	p. 99
E. coli	p. 103
The power of cloning	p. 106
A chain reaction	p. 109
Bacteria on the street	p. 112
Anthrax	p. 116
Why we will always need bacteria	p. 117
The invisible universe	p. 121
Versatility begets diversity	p. 124
Cyanobacteria	p. 128
Bacteria protein factories	p. 131
How to build an ecosystem	p. 135
Feedback and ecosystem maintenance	p. 138
Macrobiology	p. 141
Climate, bacteria, and a barrel of oil	p. 145
The story of oil	p. 147
Bacteria power	p. 149
How is a cow like a cockroach?	p. 150
Microscopic power plants	p. 154
The waste problem	p. 155
Bacteria on Mars	p. 160
Shaping the planet	p. 162
Epilogue: How microbiologists grow bacteria	p. 165
Serial dilution	p. 165
Counting bacteria	p. 167
Logarithms	p. 168
Anaerobic microbiology	p. 169
Aseptic technique	p. 170
Resources for learning more about bacteria	p. 173
Internet resources on bacteria	p. 173
Book resources on bacteria	p. 173
Classic reading on bacteria	p. 174
Bacteria rule references	p. 175
Index	p. 197
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