The Amoeba in the Room Quotes

“Hugest of living Creatures, on the Deep Stretcht like a Promontorie sleeps or swimmes, And seems a moving Land, and at his Gilles Draws in, and at his Trunck spouts out a Sea. —Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VII”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“Cultures of the fungus Penicillium have also been grown from sediment sampled 127 meters below the floor of the Pacific Ocean.15 This is a mystifying discovery, because we have no idea what a filamentous fungus is doing down there with no oxygen and so little to eat.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“The absence of archaea is puzzling given their evident fondness for the worst imaginable conditions on earth and ability to power ecosystems on the slimmest of organic rations. The”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“The usurper was called Strain 121, referring to its facility of growth at 121°C.5 This is a game changer for microbiologists, because 121 degrees is the temperature inside a lab autoclave. Autoclaves sterilize surgical instruments, as well as glassware and growth media for microbiological experiments, by replacing the dry air in their steel chambers with pressurized steam. As far as we know, Strain 121 is unique: every other living thing is defeated by autoclaving.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“Working from the other end of the digestive system, fecal microbiota transplantation, FMT for short, is a more radical approach that is being used already to treat colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and other inflammatory illnesses.25 The technique is simple, though not quite as relaxing as drinking yoghurt: a sample of microbiome from a healthy donor is presented to the patient via an enema, through a colonoscope, or via a tube passed through the nostrils into the stomach or duodenum. The”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“Genetically modified or transgenic mice expressing defective T cells develop a mouse version of MS that begins with paralysis of the tail. The mice avoid this fate if they are treated to a gnotobiotic life, but develop paralysis if they are transferred to cages in which mice with normal guts had been housed and had defecated. Formation of a normal gut microbiota leads to nerve damage. The immune system of the germ-free mice is defective, but, in this case, the faulty defenses do not stimulate disease as long as bacteria are excluded. Another interesting observation is that the severity of the autoimmune response is responsive to the types of bacteria that colonize the gnotobiotic gut. This raises the possibility of treating inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by changing a patient’s diet or through probiotics. We”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“How long will it be before obstetricians transfer a dab of vaginal mucus into the mouth of the newborn to be on the safe side?”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“Mushrooms use a catapult powered by the acceleration of a tiny droplet of fluid over the spore surface to launch spores from their gills; a relative of mushrooms called the artillery fungus employs a snap-buckling device that resembles a miniature toilet plunger to propel a spore-filled capsule into the air, and cup fungi and other ascomycetes use microscopic squirt guns to blast their spores skyward. Most”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“If a sample of soil is diluted, mixed with bacteria, and spread on agar, the phages will dot the culture with plaques after 24 hours of incubation. These plaques may be initiated by more than one phage, and the students engage in further rounds of isolation and bacterial infection to ensure that they have purified single phages. After many more steps in this lengthy procedure, the students purify and sequence the phage DNA, and can submit their sequences to an online database.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“The genes of this cryptic organism may flag it as a methane-generating anaerobe, but the cells could be ticking over, rather than farting with gay abandon, and contributing little to the chemical balance of the soil. At the time of sampling, it might have been waiting for a dip in oxygen levels that would permit its return to normal flatulent programming.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“One gram of rich forest soil contains an estimated 100 million prokaryotes.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“The species that prosper on agar represent less than 0.5 percent of the life in the soil; most microbes have thirsts that we have failed to slake in the laboratory.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes

“Trees are contrivances for lofting bacteria skyward to give them a clear view of a yellow dwarf.”
― Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes