Is There Nothing E. coli Cannot Do? The Borg Edition

In my book Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life, I describe how this humble germ helped make modern biology possible–and, in the process, has been engineered to do all sorts of remarkable things. In 2008, I blogged a fresh example, courtesy of Jeff Hasty and his colleagues. They retooled the bacteria to flash in clock-like rhythms. Now Hasty has taken another step forward, rejiggering E. coli so that millions of bacteria can flash in waves. The new paper’s in Nature, and the journal put together a lovely video of the bacteria in hive-mind performance. Check it out below.

January 21st, 2010 9:25 PM by Carl Zimmer in Microcosm: The Book | 7 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

7 Responses to “Is There Nothing E. coli Cannot Do? The Borg Edition”

1. ScienceGoddess Says:
January 21st, 2010 at 9:28 pm

I need to share this with our iGEM team…see if they can come up with something fab like this!
2. Stanley H. Tweedle Says:
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:57 am

Bioluminescence!

Fab’!
3. Wayne Says:
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:52 am

I was a microbioligist (hospital lab) in a prior life and they fasinated me then. These new findings are beyond my wildest imaginings.
4. Synchronizacja zegarów molekularnych u E. coli « BioChaos Says:
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:29 am

[...] Clock That Breeds & Is There Nothing E. coli Cannot Do? The Borg Edition (via Carl [...]
5. Stanley H. Tweedle Says:
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:49 am

Wayne,

the word is spelled ‘fascinated’!
6. Bill Cannon Says:
January 25th, 2010 at 10:17 am

This is extremely cool stuff. For anyone interested in a longer feature on this work, I invite you to check out http://ascr-discovery.science.doe.gov/universities/danino1.shtml
7. Bacteria rebuilt to make oil | makamashi Says:
June 29th, 2010 at 7:10 pm

[...] on the humble bacterium. This week in his blog, The Loom, he asks a rhetorical question: “Is there;nothing E. coli cannot do?” () This entry was posted in Bio Fuels and tagged Clean Energy, Clean Oil. Bookmark the [...]

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