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February 19, 2009, 11:59 am
The smallest researchers and their lab-on-a-chipBacteria can feel like our enemies - especially when you are trying to recover from a bacterial infection. But those tiny microorganisms can be very useful! As you probably know, they play a very important role in your intestines. Who do you think helps our digestion, even makes some vitamins, and acts like an army to keep out invaders - you guessed right... bacteria!
Scientists have now built a miniscule lab for probing the quality of water. And guess who does the work? Right, BACTERIA!
[Science Daily]
Source:
www.sciencedaily.com
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The world of bacteria is a small world - they are measured in micrometres, which are one billionth of a metre... so we need microscopes to see them and other technology to find out how they work.
But it is remarkable just what they can do - bacteria can feed on many more types of food than we can. They can even get energy from molecules that are poisonous to us!
And inside their bodies, which are made of just one cell, they can do many things that cells in our bodies cannot.
So the idea is to use bacteria like little workers in a lab to do things that we can't do - the only difficulty is finding a way for the bacteria to tell us the results of what they find out!
That is where the chip and technology come in.
Scientists have now put genetically engineered bacteria onto a chip which they can easily put into water to find out if it is clean or not - the bacteria shine brightly when they detect pollutants and using technology this can be seen instantly, instead of waiting days for normal lab test results.
Action:
Take a stroll through the Microbe Zoo here
Short video explaining the first genetic engineering in bacterial cells
Masses of teacher resources about water pollution here
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