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Bonnie Bassler on Talkative Bacteria and Eavesdropping Viruses

The Joy of x

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Using Chemicals in Bacteria

Bacteria are responding to a chemical and they change their gen expression. They're using the concentration of a chemical to infer something about the number of cells present, and it depends on everybody making a share of the chemical. So we can trick the bacteria. We can put them by themselves. We squirt the chemoc i wondered about that. But out in nature, you know, if this bacterium starts pumping out all these products and doing all these tasks that you need, lots of sells together, like be virulent,. Like makea bio film, like you secrete an exo enzyme that you're never going to get your own back. Your neighbor gets yours, you get theirs

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