Pros & Con of Bacteria

· For your third post:

· You will respond to a second classmate with a substantive comment of minimum 100, maximum 150 words about  either positive or negative aspects of their organism, after you have read their main discussion.

· Again, you should provide student original writing, paraphrasing from credible sources, cite your source for this post in text, in parentheses, and provide full end ref information in APA 7th Edition format.

Deinococcus radiodurans (jokingly known as Conan the Bacterium) are eubacteria that were discovered in 1956 by Arthur W. Anderson. Anderson’s found in a can of meat that had been exposed to sterilizing amounts of radiation this bacterium that was thriving and consuming it. In 1998 this survivalist bacterium made the Guinness World Records for being the toughest bacterium, by being able to survive and recover 1.5 million rads (the absorbed dose of ionizing radiation) radiation (Merriam-Webster, 1953). That is 3,000 times more than what it would take to kill a human. It is known as an extremophilic bacterium (polyextremophile) because it can survive dehydration, without nutrients, extreme cold, vacuum, and acid. This microscopic organism can preserve genetic integrity, implying as many times as it is tested scientifically and allowed to heal itself, it will continue to do so and rapidly. It is capable of repairing its DNA breaks because it attaches multiple copies or templates of its self to rebuild to the same integrity to the exact way it was before breaking. This alien-like bacterium can live anywhere and yet where it came from has not been found. Because of the genetic makeup of this bacterium, it can be used for bioremediation and radioactive waste sites, such as Hiroshima. This could mean more than just toxic waste can be destroyed but also that toxic sites where testing is done can potentially be cleaned of toxic matter altogether, including heavy metal toxins. This special organism can survive desiccation and has become its most evolved even though it has little by food in the form of toxic waste (Mrázek, 2002). If there is a way to add this bacterium to material and it bonds it could mean a new stage in our evolution to minimize radiation exposure and potentially protect future travels to space as well as help clean up testing sites for radiation and nuclear waste plants.

 

Mrázek, J. (2002, August 20). New technology may reveal mechanisms of radiation resistance in Deinococcus radiodurans. https://www.pnas.org/content/99/17/10943.

Most radiation-resistant lifeform. Guinness World Records. (1998). https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-radiation-resistant-lifeform.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Rad. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rad

Cox, M. M., & Battista, J. R. (2005, November 1). Deinococcus radiodurans - the consummate survivor. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro1264.