Bonnie Bassler: The secret, social lives of bacteria

www.ted.com Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria “talk” to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry — and our understanding of ourselves. See this INTERVIEW with Bonnie Bassler, “the Bacteria Whisperer” on the TED Blog blog.ted.comTEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk …

25 Comments

  1. JCYK90
    Posted April 25, 2009 at 6:12 pm | Permalink

    hahahahaha

    is it just me or does she speak like shes speaking to kindergarten children?

  2. aces9876
    Posted May 2, 2009 at 7:41 pm | Permalink

    I think this can make anyone immune to deadly diseases, making them carriers.

  3. bakadude
    Posted May 4, 2009 at 1:02 pm | Permalink

    You missed something.

    She said blockage for “specific” bacteria or viruses.

  4. imkewlhaha
    Posted May 4, 2009 at 1:08 pm | Permalink

    Not really. She specified two types of blocking mechanisms – specific, and general. My question was directed toward the general blocker.

  5. basteagui
    Posted May 5, 2009 at 1:16 pm | Permalink

    this video should be marked as a response to another video called: quantum consciousness (stuart hameroff)

  6. arheru
    Posted May 6, 2009 at 2:21 pm | Permalink

    Great speech!

  7. steeleman23
    Posted May 7, 2009 at 3:32 pm | Permalink

    We didn’t get to learn enough about how bacteria actually count these molecules to what exactly her treatment in mice does.

    I imagine the bacteria have many sensors along their cell membrane and basically get a, Yes (there is a molecule in this sensor) or No (there is no molecule in this sensor) response from each sensor. Once it receives a threshold level of simultaneous Yes’s, it activates a behavior. As opposed to somehow having a memory of how frequently is counts one of these molecules.

  8. steeleman23
    Posted May 7, 2009 at 3:35 pm | Permalink

    …continued, sorry. She did mention that her synthetic molecules somehow ‘jam’ the sensors on the cell, and I suspect would produce false positives. When enough of the synthetic molecules are jamed in the bacteria, it would activate it’s virulent behavior before reaching that threshold number of bacteria to be harmful, provoke your immune system and be destroyed without much of a fuss.

    Anyway, I’m off to find out…

  9. steeleman23
    Posted May 7, 2009 at 5:24 pm | Permalink

    Nah, I wasn’t right at all. They used Cholera bacteria for their virulence test which actually turns off it’s toxic behavior at high density, this way they tricked the bacteria into thinking there was more of them than there was, and they turned themselves off. Still an amazingly cool concept.

  10. abram730
    Posted May 7, 2009 at 5:45 pm | Permalink

    there horizontal evolution lets them evolve way faster then us… for us evolution is survival of the fittest and for them it’s a mass produced horizontal evolution via plasmids.
    watch?v=t4i0Q_irM8o#t=2m55s

  11. dtolab
    Posted May 8, 2009 at 1:38 pm | Permalink

    سبحانك يا رب

  12. Shachihata8
    Posted May 11, 2009 at 8:50 pm | Permalink

    steeleman23, I’m referring to the possibility of longitudinal studies. As opposed to leaving ourselves open to serious repercussions down the road.

  13. abram730
    Posted May 16, 2009 at 11:41 pm | Permalink

    There isn’t much of a competing answer other then quantum interactions to explain how microbes can process up to 100,000,000 bit’s per second with a nanobrain composed of proteins and a bundle of around 10,000 microtubules.

    clearly microbes are the most intelligent organisms on earth, at least on a per gram weight basis.

    Also we are moving closer to making neuralnets out of bacteria.
    google
    docid=-814489227555102815

  14. abram730
    Posted May 17, 2009 at 12:08 am | Permalink

    The only reason a bacteria can make us sick is by making toxins… without the toxins our immune systems will kill them.

    We could in time make microbial hunter killer that attack the bacteria strains that causes us illness based on the specific transmitters they produce.

  15. branboom
    Posted May 27, 2009 at 3:02 pm | Permalink

    Make the bacteria attack early by injecting a higher does of that signal chem so they get curb stomped by your immune system.

    Now!

    Wheres my Nobel.

  16. sentstuff05
    Posted June 4, 2009 at 2:11 pm | Permalink

    That is so cool.

  17. im2good4aname
    Posted June 4, 2009 at 3:54 pm | Permalink

    unfathomable complexity

  18. edanlws
    Posted June 10, 2009 at 11:26 pm | Permalink

    Nice work. keep it up. mean time come for social media marketing for esteembpo**com

  19. MonroeOgden
    Posted June 11, 2009 at 9:55 pm | Permalink

    Nice work. keep it up. mean time come for social media marketing for esteembpo**com

  20. packrellerey
    Posted June 12, 2009 at 8:15 pm | Permalink

    Nice try. Keep it up check out esteembpo + com for social media marketing. RSTRGDF

  21. KraigPierson
    Posted June 12, 2009 at 8:23 pm | Permalink

    Nice try. Keep it up check out esteembpo + com for social media marketing. dfgh

  22. DoloresTripp
    Posted June 13, 2009 at 12:54 am | Permalink

    Nice try. Keep it up check out esteembpo + com for social media marketing. dgf

  23. chatuuumeesa
    Posted June 13, 2009 at 5:02 am | Permalink

    Nice work. keep it up. mean time come for social media marketing for esteembpo**com shk

  24. oliviamulgrew
    Posted June 30, 2009 at 1:15 pm | Permalink

    wow fabulous speaker and great discoverys thankyou for this interesting video …i guess though like anything this could be used against as a biological weapon ,,or if the world powers decided to depopulate as intercellular comunication could be blocked in humans etc etc …lets hope its used for good

  25. flaaflaa
    Posted June 30, 2009 at 3:07 pm | Permalink

    Shes a perfect speaker! And I’ve never thought that anyone could speak about germs with such enthusiasm. ;p

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

Powered by WP Hashcash