How to Study Bacteria in the Lab

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We study variety of different bacteria, depending on the questions that we ask, we engineer bacteria. We use cyanobacteria very frequently in the lab to understand early life and fundamental innovations across billions of years. So ideally we want to work with bacteria that we can engineer seldom because we developed the tools to engineer them. There are really good candidates like cyanobacteria. They're one of the prime nitrogen fixers, nitrogen fixing bacteria. It's sort of a pet lab pet that we use it a lot for cloning and for understanding basic functions of the cell.

Betül Kaçar is an astrobiologist at University of Wisconsin. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:20) – History of life on Earth
(16:25) – Origin of life
(39:11) – Genetic language of life
(52:08) – Life and energy
(1:02:50) – Ancient DNA
(1:21:48) – Evolution
(1:33:19) – Alien life
(2:01:19) – Panspermia
(2:07:41) – Restarting life on Earth
(2:20:23) – Where ideas come from
(2:27:54) – Science and language
(2:36:31) – Love
(2:37:55) – Advice to young people
(2:42:29) – Meaning of life