Bacteria don't have to be icky
Feb 7, 2010, 10:30a - Science
(This is the second in a 3-post series on biology. The first post gave background on the various levels at which biologists analyze organisms. This post discusses bacteria and an interesting behavior that they have called chemotaxis. The last post will present a web app that's an interactive simulator of this behavior. And don't forget the bonus video post. ... more »
Read comments (2) - Comment
Ruggero
- Feb 18, 2010, 1:21a
I suppose that tumble probability increases with sugar concentration, so the bacteria spend more time in the area they like most.
nikhil
- Apr 12, 2010, 5:44p
That's an interesting idea which I haven't tried, but the conventional wisdom is actually the opposite. Based on what I've read, it seems that real bacteria actually tumble less when they're moving up a sugar gradient, and tumble more when they're moving down a sugar gradient, though they do adapt and return to a baseline tumbling rate.
It would be interesting to try your idea in the simulator (which I just posted) and see what happens. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do this in the interface provided, so you'd have to change the javascript to try it out.
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