Transcript Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14 – END QUESTIONS
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You are watching an action movie and ‘the bad guys’ unleash bacteria as a biological weapon into
the water supply and the bacteria quickly spreads through the water. You immediately think that this
movie isn’t very realistic - why?
After switching your major to biology, you take a class in microbiology in your second year. After
culturing a petri dish full of bacteria you get to thinking about the history of life on Earth – how old
are bacteria? by what process(es) did the first ones form? what forms of life descended from
bacteria and how?
While watching television you see a commercial where some bacteria are magnified 1000x and then
given a green color while some creepy music plays – someone is trying to frighten you into buying a
product but are most bacteria actually harmful? might some actually be helpful? what about the
human immune system, did it evolve in the presence of bacteria and if so, what does that mean?
Paying you a (possible) compliment, your friend says that you are one serious extremophile – what
does this mean and what other forms of life also share this name?
A friend of the family decides to get botox – what is this and how can its source organism be
dangerous? in general, how can spores be dangerous?
While out in the desert, a snake bites you. You get indignant and decide to bite it back and while
doing so you notice that it’s delicious. After being treated with snake anti-venom you cook the snake
and eat it – what did you just prove?
You hear in the news that a major oil spill has happened off the coast – what are some of the newer
ways that we might go about cleaning things up?
Going through a forest you notice that you never see any dead animals on the forest floor – why?