Isaw some of these images on another blog and went back to the scientist's website. These images are simply stunning.
from the website:
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE ART
These images are part of a series of remarkable patterns that bacteria form when grown in a petri dish. While the colors
and shading are artistic additions, the image templates are actual colonies of tens of billions of these microorganisms.
The colony structures form as adaptive responses to laboratory-imposed stresses that mimic hostile environments faced
in nature. They illustrate the coping strategies that bacteria have learned to employ, strategies that involve cooperation
through communication. These selfsame strategies are used by the bacteria in their struggle to defeat our best antibiotics.
Thus, if we understand the mechanisms behind the patterns, we can learn how to outsmart the bacteria - for example, by
tampering with their communication - in our ongoing battle for our health.
The images come from the laboratory of Prof Eshel Ben-Jacob, of the Tel-Aviv University (http://star.tau.ac.il/~inon/
baccyber0.html) as part of a collaboration with Prof. Herbert Levine of UCSD’s National Science Foundation Frontier
Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (ctbp.ucsd.edu). The goal of this research is to unravel the adaptation secrets
enabling bacterial survival against all odds. Their efforts build upon progress in two disparate fi elds - pattern formation in
complex dynamical systems and the molecular biology and biophysics of bacteria.
In a sense, the strikingly beautiful organization of the pattern refl ects the underlying social intelligence of the bacteria.
The once controversial idea that bacteria cooperate to solve challenges has become commonplace, with the discovery
of specifi c channels of communication between the cells and specifi c mechanisms facilitating the exchange of genetic
information. Retrospectively, these capabilities should not have been seen as so surprising, as bacteria set the stage
for all life on Earth and indeed invented most of the processes of biology. As we try to stay ahead of the disease-causing
varieties of these versatile creatures, we must use our own intelligence to understand them.
These images remind us never to underestimate our opponent.
