Comments on: Bacteria are social microorganisms: MIT researchers

By: Bri

Bri — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:30:33 +0000

I agree with the evolutionary mechanisms you outline, but I don’t think it totally describes how evolution truly functions. The best example to use to support my view is the Precambrian explosion. Random chance can not account for that kind of diversity in so short a period of time.

By: Katherine MacLean (old science fiction writer and research fan

Katherine MacLean (old science fiction writer and research fan — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:46:43 +0000

Evolution varies blindly and improves by selectively by the deadliness oof the environment. If boganvillia flowering vines grow around a desert adobe house cooling it and making it beautiful. the vine is not social it is neither friendly or unfriendly to humans it is merely strengthened in growth by the human urine as the children and males go outside to pee.Human or animal by- products often benefit plant life. This relationship does not have to be intentional or social. “Social” implies mutual support and communication. become an instinctive pleasure by eons of its selective aid to survival.

Putting it briefly, social is too warm a word. Secreting an antibiotic involves no pleasure in the mutual aid..

By: Cybernettr

Cybernettr — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 03:44:56 +0000

So am I now supposed to feel antisocial for washing my hands?

By: bcf

bcf — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:12:26 +0000

Intelligent bacteria? just keep an eye on the viruses. They are tricky little buggers.

By: PirateRo

PirateRo — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:58:08 +0000

I think we will find that a better solution is a cooperative one in which we harness microbes to work for us.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 23:58:00 +0000

I’m fairly sure this has been theorized by a fair amount of researchers in this field for quite some time. Still, I suppose this confirms it.

By: asiwel

asiwel — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:49:24 +0000

This is important and interesting research. Obviously in the far distant past, single-cell organisms found it “socially acceptable” – e.g., improved survival of the group – to band together, differentiate in terms of functions, and hence essentially become multi-cellular organisms. To understand function of features, we tend to attribute purpose inside context. “Pure cultures,” whether rats learning a maze or bacterial “colonies” surviving in petri dishes, tend to obscure much more complex problems, solutions, and behaviors/functions in more natural “wild” cultural contexts. In science, we always try to explain observed phenomenon first within a limited context and then begin to generalize that context, hoping the validity of our explanation will continue to be supported empirically. Usually, they are and this is “normal science” in the sense of Thomas Kuhn. Science becomes more interesting when both the observations and the explanations begin to change or blur as context is generalized.