Photograph by Matt W. Ford.
Photography contest, “Vegetable” category.
Halobacterium salinarum species NRC-1 growing around/on salt crystals on a dried-out plate.
Halobacterium salinarum
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This page contains a single entry by Matt Young published on August 21, 2009 12:00 PM.
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Whoa! Now that is cool!
How did this not end up in the “minerals” category?
Because it’s alive?
Oh come on! Everyone knows bacteria are classified as animals! I’m pretty sure there was even two of every kind on the Ark.
The subject of the photograph is the red archaean colonies growing on the salt crystals, not the salt crystals, themselves.
…
I remember how we always tried to grow Halobacterium in my Microbiology class, but, we never succeeded in getting them to grow, let alone thrive. Looking back, I think it was because Halobacterium undergoes its own version of photosynthesis, using light to manufacture its own ATP, and we always stuck the cultures in a dark incubator.
Animals? Back when I was in elementary school they were lumped in with plants. Protozoans were lumped with animals. I suppose somebody saw the “bi” in “biology” and mistook it for the prefix that means “two” and figured everything had to be stuffed into the two best known kingdoms, whether it fit or not. :lol:
Henry
I don’t see how Noah would have been able to keep track of bacteria if creationists claim that all bacteria and archaea constitute “one kind”
Simple. He couldn’t see them, so they didn’t exist. Can you see the Halobacterium salinarum cells in the picture? How do you know it’s not just red dye? Were you there? The point, as you know, is that creationism can accommodate anything - billions of “kinds” or one “kind”, old life or young life, one designer or many, etc. So it explains nothing.
Very nice picture. Here is a link to another picture from a slightly different perspective.
Sorry, it doesn’t seem to work. Try Google maps and search for Newark, California. Then switch to satellite picture.
Um, would he need two of each bacteria? Wouldn’t one work just fine?
Mark Twain had an essay on how many smallpox and diphtheria and tuberculosis and cholera and such microorganisms were on Noah’s Ark, and the impossibility of those human pathogens allowing the passengers to survive the voyage.
Ask a typical creationist how many Ebola and Marburg and leprosy and gonnorhea and syphilis microorganisms were on the Ark, and they have no useful answer.
Halobacteria are neat, from a few things I’ve read up on them.
They have opsins that they use for both light detection (sensory rhodopsin-I and sensory rhodopsin-II) *and* photosynthesis without chlorophyll (bacteriorhodopsin and halorhodopsin).
Ha! Found it: “The microbes were by far the most important part of the Ark’s cargo… There were typhoid germs, and cholera germs, and hydrophobia germs, and lockjaw germs, and consumption germs, and black-plague germs, and some hundreds of other aristocrats, specially precious creations, golden bearers of God’s love to man…” - Twain’s “Letters From The Earth,” http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm
When did a typical creationist ever have any useful answer, ever?
Item from Phil Plait’s BadAstronomy blog, on the Jeason lecture in Boston: Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere.
Obliviously, all those pathogenic germs evolved since the Ark thing, from germs that weren’t pathogenic at the time!!111!!one!! (And since they started as single celled critters and didn’t evolve multicelledness, it was only micro-evolution not macro.)
(Or should I let the anti-evo’s make up their own arguments?)
Henry
God commanded Noah to load up two of every kind (unless they were birds or kosher, then it’s seven), one male and one female. So obvious Noah had to load up one male and one female from every bacterial strain known and unknown to man.
Lovely picture.
Do we have any idea of scale?
The center colony is about 2.5mm in diameter, if I remember correctly.
It’s very likely that your problem wasn’t sunlight… I grow them in the dark almost all the time (they also don’t seem to mind too much if you take the oxygen away as long as they have something to eat). Likely culprits are the growth medium (not enough salt, etc.), temperature (ideally 42C) and time… the last one meaning that even with ideal conditions you won’t see much on a plate for up to a week.
All creationist answers are useful.
They help you learn how to quote mine, select only that evidence that supports your point and ignore refuting evidence, define terms to suit the argument (& bait and switch definitions when necessary). They help you learn logical fallacies you may have never thought of. They help you learn to demand a phony “critical analysis,” but only of evolution, and never demand a critical analysis, real or phony, of your alternative, or of anti-evolution positions that contradict it. They help you learn how to evade questions about your “theory” and change the subject back to “weaknesses” of evolution. If you collect enough of them, it’s fun to spot the inconsistencies, “have it both ways” tactics, etc.
what is the halobacterium salinarum’s diet?
uww thats gross how could you think that
dude thats wat im trying to figur out
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