Timothy Paustian <paustian at bact.wisc.edu> wrote
>> From what I have read the main objection to microbes this size is that
>> with our current understanding of cellular processes, they are too small
>> to contain the structures that they need, ribosomes, chromosome, etc.
>> Now that doesn't mean they couldn't be doing things in a way we don't
>> yet understand. My mind is open, but wary.
David Lloyd-Jones <icomm5 at netcom.ca> wrote:
>Stay with that wariness, babe, it'll save your ass.
This is always good advise, no matter what the field :).
[snip]
>Now all of these micro-critters may exist. Or at least a new schema of
>classification, whereby old arbitrary divisions of scale are reconsidered,
>may come into existence.
I was at the last ASM General Meeting (Chicago, May-June, 1999). There
was a symposium about ultramicrobacteria which included a talk about the
basic size requirements etc - all based on present knowledge and
understanding of bacteria and what is required to preform certain basic
tasks etc. Much of it boiled down to a great deal of skepetism that these
organisms exist. In the audiance was a woman who is a member of a lab
working on these, in blood. I admired her standing up to the prevailing
attitude of ridicule. There's a lot we don't know and the assumptions we
make regarding microorganisms have had a tendancy (if you look at the
history) of falling apart. There is some evidence that these bugs exist,
maybe not enough to absolutely prove it but enough to warrent a closer
look.
>Meself, I'm wary too. My bet is on big fat bacteria, cunning little
>mechanical viruses, (and, soon to come, an elucidation of the cunning
>mechanical operation of enzymes), microscopes being all full of eye-lashes
>and white blood cells of the vitreous humour, and on prions: six will get
>you five either way.
As for prions - I'm not all that well versed in them though I know a
little and I do know that we have known about prion diseases for quite
some time. My grandfather died of primary amilidosis (spelling could be
off here) back in the late fifties.
>I'm not a microbiologist, nor do I play one on TV.
I'm an environmental microbiogist (that's what they tell me anyway) though
I work with eukaryotes.
joan
--
Joan Shields jshields at uci.eduhttp://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
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