Everyday I have a list of sites that I try to read to stay up with science, the world, people, etc. Today I was reading a blog having to do with the latest bioinfo. Here is what excited me today....
A group of students at the University of Texas at Austin have created living photographs made of bacteria.
This is so cool.
With the help of their advisors they transferred a light sensor protein from blue-green algae to a mutant strain of E. coli. E. coli don't usually sense light because they live in our guts, and we don't have any light in our guts....as far as we know. Anyway, this new strain of E. coli can now sense light and therefore can either be dark or light (dark = you have pigment....light=you don't have pigment) depending on what type of environment it was grown in. A physics undergrad built a light projector for this project that would then expose the growing colonies to a specific light pattern ( a pattern that resembles a photo of something). After growing for 12-15 hours ( "film" exposure time) you take away the light projector and viola! You have a pic made out of E. coli!!! Biology is so cool.
I just gave you the low down on the project you can read the full article at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/uota-ssc112105.php
Enjoy!
Meg
1 comment:
That's really cool - if you find the pictures of that (if there are any online anywhere), post the link (or the pics)!
God Bless!
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