so I'm Maureen thank you for bearing
with us yeah actually I think I might
just you can read wrong entirely we had
not either texting because
the delay is a little awkward what did you say
okay thank you for bearing with me
hopefully everyone is here and ready to
go since we are starting a little late
you know I'm happy to stay for a
full hour you all want to stay past
you know the end of whatever time we
would be 10:00 a.m. for me but whatever
time it is for you okay so yeah I'm
Maureen I'm coming to you from Berkeley
California so now it's about 9:20 and I
am a postdoctoral scholar at the joint
Genome Institute which is a part of the
Berkeley National Lab actually I got my
PhD here at UC Berkeley so I've been
here quite a while and my research
focuses on making tools to better link
bacteria and the viruses that infect
them and I'm doing that with a focus on
green sulfur bacteria in freshwater
lakes so I'll give a little bit of
background about what I do and then
we'll kind of open it up some questions
and honestly we're just gonna kind of
wing this a little bit yeah
so I guess we'll just maybe get like a
short background on bacteria viruses and
then I know some people had some like
various phage questions so you can
make sure I get this up well then we
can go into and then if you all have any
questions you can put them in the
comments plus we have a little bit of a
surprise maybe at some point during this
stream okay yeah so hopefully everything's
good now okay yeah so viruses that
infect bacteria are called bacteria
phages which actually just means
bacteria eaters for shorthand we usually
just call them phages and these
phages come in a lot of different sizes
and shapes well some of like the super
classic phage shapes which i brought with
me are the T4 phages which kind of looks
like little aliens almost so here's
one Mark sent so you have the head this is
where the genome is then you have this
tail this kind of legs and so when it
infects the bacteria it kind of squirts
its genome into the cell this actually
lights up fun so that's a really common
phage shape but they come in some sizes
sometimes they don't have those tails
and sometimes they are kind of long and
filamentous they come in a variety of
interesting shapes but they're an important
thing to study because they can affect
the bacteria that are there whether
just by killing them or by actually
changing their you know their metabolism
what the bacteria do so what I
specifically do and we can go into more
phage questions if you have them but
what I specifically do is make tools to
kind of link those those viruses and
their bacterial host so one reason
why this is difficult is because one in
order to look at the viruses or the
phages you either need to
able to grow the hosts because the phages
can't replicate without the host but
not all hosts are easy to grow so one
thing that people have done is looking
at genomes which is I work at the Joint
Genome Center so we do a lot of genomics
and you can do this by let's say by taking a
water sample you can pull out all the
viruses and you can sequence their
genomes however if you have all these
genomes you don't really know who they
infect you just know what your genomes look like
so you don't really know like who they infect
but if you're wanting to look at how
viruses you know affect the ecosystem
or how they affect the lakes it's
important to know who they infect
so the one thing that has happened in the last three to
six years is the use of metagenomics so
you can look through bacterial genomes
and seeing if there's any virus genomes
within those genomes but still these
tools are still kind of like maybe this
virus infects this host you're really not
sure so I'm making tools to kind of
better link those and we can go into
that more if you want but they're a
little I don't really know how well that
would work via Skype anyway so I'm using
the tools that I'm making in a freshwater lake
to look at green sulfur bacteria so I
can draw it out so in the
types of lakes that I'm looking at with
these green sulfur bacteria we're looking
at them because I mean they're
interesting and we can go into their
metabolism a little bit more but they live
in a very specific part of the water
column and so that's why they're kind of
nice to sample
because we know where they are and
they're you know easy to find so in the
types of lakes that I'm looking at are
these stratified lakes and so what
happens is in the winter it's frozen but
in the spring the lake will thaw or and kind
of mix a little bit just because the
water temperatures have different
densities you get out some mixing and
the summer you have a stratified
lake so what happens is you have this
like let's see I can hold it up this
upper layer which is warmer water that
has more oxygen and then you have this
bottom layer that is cooler water with
less oxygen and this layer in between
like right at this kind of thermocline
is kind of a hot spot for these green
sulfur bacteria because they do what's
called an oxygenic photosynthesis so
they do photosynthesis but they don't
use oxygen oxygen actually will kill them
so they need to live at a certain
layer so they get enough light but
they're deep enough to escape the oxygen
so that's why they kind of live at this
very specific layer so when you're
sampling
them you can kind of know where to
look so I have my little snake Hank she's
been sitting out she's hanging out in my
sleeve right now we can talk more
about her a little later so anyway so
these green sulfur bacteria so they
live in this very specific spot so they're
kind of a good model to test all of my
new methods yes Hank so because you know where to
find them and they grow to really high numbers
in the summer and they kind of diminish
when the lake freezes so there's a
lot of interesting like kind of
ecosystem type questions with those
green sulfur bacteria but kind of on a
more general side in addition to kind of
testing out the methods that I'm making
we don't really know anything about the
viruses that affect them at all like I
think there may be one potential viral
genome but not really a lot is known
about anything that affects them so it's
a pretty you know these bacteria have
been around for a really long time
so even just kind of basic biological
questions of like what affects them what do they
do to them you know they have
interesting metabolisms the bacteria and
you know we know from cyanobacteria
which are photosynthetic bacteria but
they like oxygen they have very
interesting phages some of them can
actually change their host metabolism so
any cyanobacteria so if you're infected
with a phage you know you'll want to
divert all of your energy to kind of
fighting off an infection and if you're a
phage you want to have the host to make
more of you you're gonna want them to
put energy into producing more and
growing more so this isn't good though
for the phage so the phage wants the host
to not move all their energy from kind
of growing so what this phage that
will infect cyanobacteria
what it will do is it will actually make
proteins that kind of force the
cyanobacteria host to grow more so it
actually will make more phage so that's
kind of one way that they just kind of
manipulate the host genome or the host's
metabolism it's not always bad and we
can go into that a little bit
but anyway so that's kind of like a
super high level maybe somewhat rambling
overview of what I do so there were a few
questions that people submitted that
we're specific to
green sulfur bacteria so they can
probably could jump into them and kind
of see where this goes okay so
Keith not Kevin asked do green sulfur
bacteria eat hydrogen sulfide or carbon
dioxide yeah so what's so kind of play
overview
she's actually out a lot more right now so
green stuff so they're kind of a
bacterial metabolism of the lake so what
happens is you have kind of think of
them as like three main groups so
you have the cyanobacteria which
actually we mentioned before those
do photosynthesis but they like
oxygen or you know they live it
up they're not killed by
oxygen and actually produce oxygen then
you have two other groups you have the
green sulfur bacteria which are type of
the sulfur oxidizing bacteria so they you
know they oxidize sulfide to for example
like elemental sulfur and then you have
sulfur reducing bacteria so if your
lake has enough oxygen then it prevents
those kind of bacteria like green sulfur
bacteria from growing and you have a lot
of cyanobacteria
once your lake kind of has
those layers it has a area that has less
oxygen and what you'll have is these two groups of bacteria you'll have
sulfur reducing bacteria then you have
the sulfur oxidizing bacteria and so
kind of like you can think their waste
products are kind of like the waste of
one product of one bacterial
group but it's kind of like the food for
another so they kind of keep each other
growing if that kind of makes sense just
like a circle to put it like really
generally so green sulfur bacteria
actually kind of like produce sometimes
they produce elemental sulfur sometimes
produce like hydrogen sulfide it depends
on which one but yeah so they're
an oxidizing bacterial species there
are a few other little sulfur bacteria
questions let's see what's the most
specific one okay so we'll talk a little
bit more about green sulfur bacteria and
then we'll go into phages and then I
think we're just going to see where the
conversation takes us who knows maybe
we'll all just want to look at Hank okay
so okay so yeah so if you have
any more questions about green sulfur bacteria we can talk about that but actually I'm just
going to jump into the phages okay so phages in general are super cool so
okay so actually two people Susanna and
Ezra for asked about basically how many
like bacteria can phages infect like
are they specific to one type of
bacteria or can like they infect all
bacteria so in general the what we call
host range for phages is pretty small so
what happens when a phage infects a bacteria you can kind of
think of them in a few different ways but
they basically like you kind of need
like think of it like a lock-and-key in
a way to be able to put their genome
into the host and they have to kind of fit
correctly onto the host in order to put
their genome in so there isn't kind of
like a master key that will infect all
bacteria so the phages
you might they might only be able to
infect like a few types of hosts in a
specific species there are few
exceptions it's actually the groups of
bacteria called double jelly roll phages you
just call that because the kind of
so this part that makes
the outside it's called a capsid it's
like made of proteins and so the proteins
are just like double jelly roll type
proteins that's why they're called double
jelly roll but some of those can
infect like a lot of different hosts and
they're kind of like special in that but
in general phages yes so phages are
pretty you know they don't they
have a pretty narrow host range so
someone did a follow up about do you
think you can create a phage like can
target multiple bacteria once
again like it has to be able to fit kind
of you know that lock and key be able to
fit into the bacteria and able to like
put its genome in and you know the
bacteria don't really like to be
infected so they're constantly trying to
change that like kind of like
locked part and so the phages is kind of
also trying to key up with them so it's if
you even if you had a phage that can
infect like you know lots of bacteria may not last long
like I said they change they're
constantly changing they're kind of
trying to prevent bacteria is trying to
prevent the phage from being able to
infect it and the phage is trying to kind
of like outrace it in a way but so this
is someone actually did in the comments
talked about can you create a phage
target specific disease so I don't really know
that much about phage therapy which is
what this is but there's been a lot of
research on it so the idea is that you
can make a phage to since they're so
specific and they don't really have you
know they don't easily infect
random bacteria the
idea is that you can make a phage to
infect you know a specific disease like
you know any sort of a kind of
like bacterial infection or a type of
disease you can go through and they can
go and selectively kill those pathogens
so yeah so that's called phage therapy
and yeah so it's been around for actually
quite a while but in the US it's a
little bit more of a research big
research focus but yeah it's being
looked at for a long time okay do the
phages don't the phages change to be
resistant to the bacteria yeah
okay so let's talk about this like it's
just a little more detail since I might
have rambled a little bit about that
earlier so what happens is so on a
bacterial cell
there's a variety of ways that they can
infect them but an easy one to
think of as bacteria have these for
example and have these just another one
of my beautiful artworks they have these
kind of like you can have these
like hair like things on there which are
called pilli and so for the bacteria that
can be used for you know moving or
attaching or you know there's a variety
of methods the ways that they use it but
what happens in a lot of phages is they
take advantage of that and they kind of
like hook on to those pilli and then
kind of put its genome in so like it has
to be able to fit on that certain
protein on the pilli to infect it so as you know bacteria keep
reproducing the ones that may modify
that protein to prevent the phage from
killing them will be the ones that live
on but then the phage will you know
through evolution will the ones that
were successful ones that have like
modifications that can kind of latch on to
that new bacteria so that's why
it's kind of this arms race they're always
trying to like one up each other
and you know there's a lot of other
different defenses in bacteria too but
that's like a super basic one I'm really
just gonna randomly going this okay
let's see okay since we're talking about
bacterial immunity someone did ask if
there is a way for the bacteria to
kill a phage before it reproduces yeah so
there's a couple of kind of like
bacterial immunity and if you've heard
of CRISPR that's actually a type of
bacterial immunity so if so what kind of
happens is if the bacteria has is the
ability to do CRISPR and what it'll have
is I always think of it as kind of like
a rolodex like of just kind of like
snippets of the phage genome and so it
kind of has one that matches the phage
that's infecting it it can use that to
degrade the phage genome before it
starts reproducing there are a couple
other kind of fractional immunity ones
so that's if you've heard of CRISPR it's
actually a bacterial immune system and
we just used it for the technology
purpose okay let's see okay so someone
you know go forth with the phage questions
then kind of jump back to bacteria for a bit okay someone
did ask
somebody asked is it possible so Vasily
that's how you say the name is it possible
for that water-bound bacteria and their
bacteriophages might play a role in
antibiotic resistance so I'm not totally
sure I can answer your question but I
might co-opt your question to talk
about something else a little bit more
but maybe hopefully this will answer
your question so one thing about phages
that is why they're super important is
that they contribute to what's called
horizontal gene transfer so let's
just pause and I'll explain this a little bit more
so you can kind of think of phage
reproduction in two ways so one of them
is the phage will go in go kind of
squirt its genome into the host but
immediately it will make the host turn
the host into a phage factory and it will
make more phages and then the host dies
another way is that's kind of like
a lytic phage another way is that the
phage can put its genome into the host
and instead of killing it right away
it'll actually stick its own genome into
the host genome I'm just going to shove
it in there so when I talk about when I
can look at bacterial genomes to look
for viral genomes I'm looking for those
types of features the ones that stick
their genomes into the host genome okay
couple more phage questions so anyway
so when you have those phage genomes in
the host genome at some point later on
they can decide to kind of pop out and
make the host make more
of them kind of jump into that other
lytic life cycle however when they come out
of the genome sometimes they take some
extra genes with them
like host genes since you know through a
variety of ways they kind of take
extra host genes with them so if they
take some extra host genes with them and
then they go and infect another cell
afterwards those genes can be into from
can like be transferred from one cell to
the other which is called horizontal
gene transfer so the question about
antibiotic resistance if that phage
happens to take antibiotic resistance
genes from one host it can move it into
another host so I guess that's a way
that you can play that phages can play a
role in antibiotic resistance but these genes
can be they don't have to be antibiotic
resistance genes they can be a lot of
different types of genes okay there were
a couple other like just a general bacteria
questions so make sure you have
time for those but I guess just to talk
about phages let's just dive right in
okay so a couple super couple of really
basic questions to knock out so
can phages reproduce in humans phages
infect bacteria so they need bacteria to
reproduce so they can reproduce in
bacteria in humans but they like
actually need a bacterial cell in order
to reproduce okay so why do they just
target bad bacteria and can they target
good ones they target all bacteria so
there are ocean there's an estimated or
globally there's like an estimated of
ten to the 31 phages or viruses the
phages most of the viruses 
in the world like it's like an enormous
amount of phages like if you take what is
the number like if you take like one
liter of surface seawater there are more
 viruses in that than humans on
earth
total like there's an enormous amount of
phages like when you go swimming in the
ocean you're swimming in a phage soup
but like those phages can't do
anything to you
so they target all bacteria like if
there is a bacterial cell out there
there's a phage that can infect it so they
target all bacteria like I said they
don't always it's not always bad for
bacteria one example of how a phage can
actually is bad for us but good for bacteria
is cholera so if you know cholera so bacterial
cholera causes cholera and so one of 
the ways that makes us sick is that it
produces a cholera toxin however not all
like historically not all cholera had this
toxin this toxin is actually from a
phage that infected cholera and stuck
its genome into the cholera and
cholera kind of co-opted that toxin
gene so that it became you know kind
of like a pathogenic cholera for us so
it's good for the cholera because it
makes them a more you know virulent or
more like effective pathogen but it's
bad for us so yes phages can be good
for bacteria they can be bad for
bacteria they infect all bacteria
like it's just it's like the Wild West
how long can a phage survive without a host
cell honestly I like I know it varies
I mean it's I don't know like the actual
answer to this I mean you can keep in
terms of like in a lab space you can
keep phage stocks like liquid phage
cultures for quite a long time and
they'll still be alive I don't know like
what the upper limit of that is I mean
they it's not like they're dying within a
minute it's not like the phage like just
kind of disintegrates within minutes if
there's no bacteria like they can
last a decent amount of time I don't
actually know like what the upper limit
of that is to be honest okay
yeah so some of these questions are
asking about yes someone asked like
horizontal gene transfer as a way for a
phages to evolve so is that how a virus
that is specific to one host when those can
change to parasitize another like
bird flu so I don't really know a lot
about eukaryotic viruses so but in terms
of changing hosts within bacteria I
mean it's like a pretty big jump for any
virus eukaryotic or bacterial
but in bacteria it's a pretty big jump
when you can when they kind of be able
to infect a new host usually it's kind
of like a closely related host it's not
some like you know hugely different one
that's less common I would say so
say a phage evolves too much and it
becomes invincible is there a way to
kill it I mean in some way I mean if
you think of it like theoretically if a
phage kills all of its hosts then it
has nothing left to reproduce with so
that's not really ideal but you kind of
need a balance of being able to like
still have hosts I mean I guess so maybe
like would jump to a different host but
okay oh this is a good question can two
phases infect oneself
yes co-infections
are quite common they can do a lot of
really wild things
so I actually you know I focus on
bacteriophages that this is actually
these are viruses like amoebas which are
the giant viruses and they have really
cool this is actually so sometimes you
can have phages infect two different phages infect a bacterial cell
and they can kind of like double up and
interesting interactions but this is a
good segue into giant viruses so which
is not a I work with people who study
these this is totally not
my specialty but so it happens to be
so I don't know if giant viruses are only
in amoebas or that's just ones we found
it's most likely the latter but these giant
viruses have kind of viruses of their
own in a way so these kind of viruses
are called virophages they're just
really just viruses of viruses so you
have a giant virus if you heard like
mimivirus for example to giant
virus and it infects an amoeba but if
you have a virophage it can also kind
of like jump in and co-infect that
amoeba and it kind of uses the giant
viruses like machinery and it makes
more of itself so kind of it's like a
parasite it kind of steals away this
like kind of the resources from this
giant virus so it's more of a
parasite thing kinda like a virus of a
virus but the other co-infections
whether it's two bacteriophages or like
a giant virus and a virophage are
common you can see these sometimes you
can have kind of like the
infection exclusion you can have one
phage infect the bacteria and they can
prevent another phage from infecting it
so these kind of like types of
interactions between different phages and
like infecting different hosts vary quite
a lot and we're still kind of learning
more about it but yeah multiple phages
can infect a cell for sure okay
somebody just asked the phages that put
genes in bacteria are they
retroviruses retroviruses are RNA
viruses so they have to be like go from
RNA to DNA so they're a totally different type of
virus there's a specific type of virus
phages can be RNA viruses they can be DNA
viruses retroviruses are
horizontal gene transfer does not
equal retroviruses horizontal gene
transfer can be involved in like any
phage okay after the phages DNA gets into
the cell it was a too late for the cell
to stop it at that point so that's why I
talked about CRISPR where if you have
that if you have a you know slot in your
rolodex that matches that phage DNA it
can kind of like through a variety of
proteins can bind to it and degrade it
so it's not necessarily too late if
bacteria becomes super resistant to
phages will antibiotic start to work on
them more effectively again I mean look
again I don't really do a lot of phage
therapy there's it's kind of a
complicated question antibiotics only
work if they don't have antibiotic
resistance genes so if bacteria don't
retain an antibiotic resistance genes
and they become susceptible to
antibiotics so that's a more complicated
question okay so okay so I think there
were a couple other phage questions and
they will jump into microbes just
generally a little bit let's see
okay actually Sara asked a question
with microbes I think the good kind of
jumped back in some microbes a little
bit which actually this is a hard
question actually someone asked me this
like last week or two weeks ago so what
do you find to be the most surprising
thing that bacteria can do I mean so
one thing I like about what I like about
bacteria
I mean microbes in the know but you know
I kind of more specialized bacteria is
that they can do anything like if
there's a resource out there they'll use
it like there's just like no limit like
they can get really creative especially
you know being you like single-celled
organisms with like you know relatively
simple genomes which there isn't
possible but hmm
I think probably one of my like more
personal and it's not they're definitely
kind of more like impressive like kind
of like skills that viruses have or
bacteria have but one that I think is
like fun because it's kind of so simple
so like I think it's action
they're just bacteria which is like I'm
Thiomargarita namibiensis it's really big
like at its largest it can be the same
size it's like the head of a (unintelligible) like it's enormous and so most
like bacteria are really small like
single cells aren't like huge because you
have kind of a surface to volume ratio
issue if you're too big you know to be
able to diffuse stuff into your cell you
know to get it to the center of the cell
it doesn't really works that's why
you want to increase your surface area
so you can get things to diffuse in and
out more efficiently and so but
this one's like so huge and it's kind of
like how does it get away with doing
that but to be so huge so it has kind of
this like I think of kind of like if you
had a like balloon inside of another
balloon so it's the center kind of
inflated portion which I'm totally
blanking it's filled with nitrogen I think
as Lana um
so actually the amount of so kind of
components or relational layers between
this kind of like balloon that's inside
of the cell so it that's how it like
maximizes surface area that's why I can
get so big so yeah so they're definitely
kind of morally impressive things but
that's just kind of like such a simple
solution and they make it to kind of
like have the other benefits of being so
big
um so I think it's very elegant of how
simple that is okay actually one other
person asked question about how big is
the phage they vary a lot roughly
like super generally maybe they're about
like 1/10 of a size within the average
bacteria so but the Anna can very light
okay one last page question because
actually is kind of a hard one can we
tell which pages logo into which play is
like a phylogenetic tree finish taxonomy
is also like a Wild West which actually
I didn't really do a lot of facial works
upon my postdoc so I learned this more
recently because phage genomes can vary
a lot basically you can kind of take
like do they share similar genes music
related gene content it's not it's a
little more rough than like any
bacterial taxon we can become rough too
but like it's a lot more rough than
write your attacks on me so it's kind of
complicated okay when I mention migrants
okay
okay so someone did have like a specific
question actually here's some people did
ask questions about on Twitter
so general Ballinger asked about
bacterial smells and I all right to play
other one thing
so you actually else like which bacteria
smell the worst but I was like briefly
talk it's also almost 10 I did say I
would go for a full hour so if you need
to leave that's fine you can watch us
later but I'll do a whole hour so you
have to be like 15 to 20 minutes so he
said like what's the worst bacterial
smell so I haven't smelled like all
bacteria so there are ones I know it's
not like pretty bad but I have literally
puts me so but I mean any bacteria that
like reducer you know like they slowly
grunt legs a lot of like handle roads
like bacteria that you know can't live
in oxygen
those can smell pretty bad I do know
that this one I think it's like I never
turn Browns like here and it's like a
canola I think smells like bleach those
are probably one of the more bad ones
the yellow banner ad smell kinda bad and
then like you know a lot of ones that
kind of like produce sulfur compounds
can smell like rotten eggs so I guess
some kinds of proteus some species can
smell kind of bad just kind of smell
like rancid there are some other
bacteria that's not really good though
so Pseudomonas aeruginosa which I work a
lot with doing my PhD
it smells like great grapes like kind of
like like artificial green flavor very
strongly that's always really fun
why rotten egg so they produce sulfur
compounds and looks like Weis that's
like this sulfur makes us think of like
rotten eggs but
yeah so I mean like yeast smell really
good and like you know they're like beer
bread the kind of like after being smell
they're kind of birthday cell is
actually bacterial I got keno my CDs
shirt to my CDs that sounds really good
there are some that's know it I've never
smelled that I've heard some smell like
you know cake or like caramel some kind
of smell like they're kind of chocolatey
I don't actually know which ones those
are I've never smelled those but yeah
they have like a really wide variety of
smells it just depends like what
compounds they produce but yeah so that
chisel at worst I mean yeah I guess
probably anaerobes or anything that kind
of like produces sulfur compounds
because they kind of smell like rotten
eggs but I don't know I've slob worse I
guess
let me get up okay so Astro froggy what
is my favorite my group in general and
why rather than hurt my kid to work with
if I had to be a microbe which I see
here microbe in general so I have
actually talked about this in the past
about like my favorite microbes so I
already said that kuffar migrated
Indians that's a really big one so I
also like geo vector because it you know
they call it might be electric microbe
it like making like transfer electrons
so their pill ID which we talked about
earlier
one of my other like huge favorite
that's nice my name is really am so
they're like these bacteria that have
these iron deposits um Richard called
Twitter in these for early containers
called my maze ohms and they use that to
like orient themself was like thirds I
can she like magnetic field so they kind
of know where they are so reduces their
like
you know so instead of kind of billion
3d they can kindly go in 2d um I I
always thought that was like so cool
that once again such a simple solution
but like it's so useful then there's
other ones padilha like UWA Brio was
actually parasitic they like will attach
to other bacterial looks like uppercuts
basically we use them to reproduce so
those are really fun um when I hear it
micro to work with I mean this isn't
like a really satisfying answer but
people have used like equalize like the
typical you know like model organism for
bacteria so there's a lot of tools for
it it's easy to grow it grows really
fast there's just you can do a lot with
it just because one of these they grow
into there's a lot of tools and like
resources out there so like it might be
my favorite directors just because it's
like easy I just like but that's more
it's more of a kind of statement on like
what science community has like put
resources into like developing tools for
versus it being like a super interesting
microbe and then if I had to be a micro
which might go could I be so I'm going
to extend this to like the true
definition of my group so it's just like
not just bacteria so I mean include
small animals in that case then I would
definitely be a tardigrade because like
nothing could kill me and actually there
are a few the questions not anchor we'll
get to that in a minute
um okay
so are there good bacteria definitely
yeah so in actually Sarah studies
bacteria that are super important for
squids
so there's yeah I'm talking about you
there yeah so a lot of and like like
bacteria are important for kind of the
development of you know animals immune
systems or you know like school right
squid I mean you have in terms of talked
about you but yeah they're they're
important for kind of like you know
helping for example helping termites
digest would they eat or in a lot of
actually the room ends are for you for
like cows to be able to like eat all
that grass and get energy from it so
that area are super important honestly
like most bacteria are not harmful like
most of them either they don't do
anything to us or they're hopeful
obviously we focus on the bad ones
because they like kill us
so that's so yeah so bacteria are
generally like super useful I mean this
is by chance disease but I mean think
about like you wouldn't have liked your
or bread or a lot of other stuff without
yeast so you know they they're very
important okay what is the hardest part
making a switch on soil microbiology to
aquatic microbiology okay that's
actually other okay so so it's like
super brief my background actually have
some aquatic experience the past so we
know it's undergrad I worked in an
entomology lab that did some microbes
stuff so I worked more funky combination
ecology so I like went in the woods and
I watched pigs rot and then we collected
microbe samples and in some samples so
that it includes some swell work the lab
also did aquatic entomology as well so I
did do some freshwater stream research
so I
have some aquatic research from the past
honestly
so no mic around she is really hard
because while microbes are really
resistant to like everything like
they're you know they're they're tough
like you have to really like throw a lot
of chemicals about them together at DNA
out and soils are full of humic acids
which inhibit you know people like PCR
and things that you need to do to
sequence so the benefit of dairy aquatic
my Crouch is everything already in
liquid so like you know it really is
actually easier you know I mean you know
everything it means harder other ways
but like in terms of kind of just
getting samples it's a lot easier so I'm
gonna learn also ask what is the most
complex microbe you have ever studied
yes almost it actually most of my
microbiology research is always been
kind of in conjunction with animals like
I have also the background in in bravery
biology so it's either like insects and
microbes or like when I was a grad
student I did you know I worked nematode
so and I'ma toes and their microbes so
so this is probably my postdoc is
probably my first time we're actually
like really truly folks and the micro
just without like an animal host
associated so I mean I guess maybe you
like my green silver bacteria now
because they are Anna Rose and I've but
I don't really grow them we just like
sample them and then get their DNA out
but yeah maybe green sulfur bacteria I
know I think they're really cool so I
know that's not really a good answer for
you so someone did ask what code microbe
would Hank be looks like the cutest
question in the world
it's a good question
I don't know I'm just trying to honestly
I'm just trying to think of like what
the cutest microbe is because I thought
she would be I'm trying to exclude
animals I don't know maybe maybe I could
get yeast because when they you know
when they're like maybe they're kind of
like reducing they do this things close
mooing and it's really cute I don't
really have to make sure that like a
commotion early and they kept it they
kind of like it's just adorable
you can usually you can see it I'm not
even attempt to draw it because it's
gonna look absurd yeah maybe she eats
because they're pretty cute I guess
maybe I guess like strep those little
like hawks I are really cute too
basically anything looks cute but
honestly I think those things are cute
so it's not really it's really fair okay
I'm so yeah I know I'm just taking
random questions um since feeling like
maybe five to 10 mins left can Patriots
be affected by climate and can some
Gators always survive in specific areas
of the world ages anywhere that their
cellular life pages can live because
they'll be infecting themselves so
people sitting at pages and like funky
functions they are everywhere like their
cellular like their their ages their .
um so I've infected by climate yeah so
it's all you know it depends on like
what uh you know they're affected by
their hopes their hosts availability so
for example you know like with the likes
of on studying day right where the links
that I'm studying you know they freeze
in the winter but everybody freeze in
the winter but you know they might
be falling a little bit earlier which
then might affect their you know the
host kind of change in the summer I do
know some people who study soil viruses
and permafrost and even like threw out
some of their PhD research they've seen
drastic changes so heracross is like you
know like way in from the north he's
progressed so I like seeing
drastic changes even there like five
years during their PhD and just like the
phage populations can change because the
host composition change so much so kind
of like what that means overall is still
kind of like an unknown thing but you
know phages are really important they
you know microbes produce like my crews
continue to launch like carbon cycling
and other like like global climate
cycling so pages thus have like a huge
impact on that okay how will fate is
affect the first fifteen years from now
I mean likely they're the same way like
in similar ways they're affecting the
earth now like I don't have some numbers
on me but but like I said like microbes
contribute large percentages to quite
global energy cycling and so the pages
that kill those bacteria are like re
releasing all these nutrients into the
food we're basically so so I've seen
that would change but I think the types
of ways they like the herds will be
similar I don't really know I mean I
don't think anyone really knows that
we're still mister learning a lot about
them because the technology to study
them more effectively as to be like like
large can use of them for such a
singular ones more recent can't be just
directly caused serious damage to humans
yes I already give the example of
cholera
so it's not wealthy enough liver direct
history just can't infect us but in the
example of cholera they can make cholera
you know produce a toxin that kills us
so that technically would be indirect
her that's the most direct
play that up features can affect humans
let's see okay story there's one other
there are two other kind of like random
questions that thank again
someone did ask so Willie how does the
onslaught of combined sewage overflow to
fetch fresh water bodies and how and
does the sodium hypochlorite spraying my
approach actually kill the majority of
bacteria and viruses so I haven't worked
with wastewater stuff I only took it a
little bit you know like eight years ago
so I don't really have an answer for you
but with innovations like gold so I
don't know the methods anymore but that
used to be when you're looking at the
effect of like treatment on or you have
measuring things in waste waters water
you know you're not looking to see if
like 100 percent of bacteria are gone
you know they might have methods to test
for e.coli or other bacteria that are
like human concern again I don't know if
that's true anymore I don't you know I
don't know this isn't your like waste
like water treatment plants just like
waste water measurement so when they
kind of see those are effective I
remember then looking you know they
won't look at all my change the first
ones that might actually harm humans and
like those types of things will like
kill them I don't know how many yeah I
don't really I don't really know that
much like wastewater and then the other
last question someone asks which I hope
I did miss anyone
so can you catch up cold with a flu from
cold weather from Jeannie well this is
going to be periodic you need human
diseases but with that
I mean that is kind of like miss like
cold weather doesn't directly give you a
cold through indirect ways that can
increase the cold or flu rates if you
think about it you know the cold
lightning if you're cold you might your
immune system might be more suitable you
know in colder climates with people are
more like maybe indoors they're sharing
more space so if there's a direct
there's a relationship but it's not a
direction things not um but the biking
is about that okay nothing like five
more minutes so if there's any other
last questions there's a national
selection occur at the microbial level
of same way it works with larger animals
I mean I'm like a super basic level yes
in terms of like ones that are able to
reproduce
you know those will be the more fit
microbes so yeah so I got super basic
theoretical oh cool yeah like it's still
kind of like selection process it
happens at a much faster rate because
they're you know their generation time
they just reproduce a lot faster if you
trying to get more and she likes been
nitty-gritty with the ways those work
then they're not exactly the same
because you know bacteria and
reproduction is not the same animal
reproduction
so yes I'm like a really high level some
similar broad concepts but you know they
they reproduce a little differently so
how you look at it would be a little
different okay see a few more questions
or some more minutes you don't miss any
okay so since you actually only have a
few more minutes I I do know some people
asked questions that Hank which she's
like thank you
since I only had like two minutes let's
yeah if you actually have any other
microbe questions I'll look at it but so
yeah so that's what Hank
she is a Kenyan sand boa she is I guess
almost about a year and a half ago
okay
when people knew I was going to have
around here's they're asking questions
so her tank is about a ten gallon tank
but and I'd be updated a little bit
bigger when she reaches full size
she eats about once a week and and so
right now I just feed her like baby now
she's my back and she really likes like
some Kenyan Sambo with burrow most of
the day so she likes to borrow open just
leaves yes it's like little like the
mice and she also asked yeah so I don't
have any cats that live with me right
now
so she said bear that around cats but um
when I used to have a leopard gecko some
rest
about how cats feel about pink because I
get the tweet about cats a lot yeah and
when I used to have a leopard gecko I
would never take that I go throw out
with cats because I know what they would
do around them but they just kind of
left them alone like they only care
about his tank never like looked will
get into much nice to feed the weather
guy forgets there were tickets than the
actual Greg oh okay yeah so I guess he
had like maybe to issue more minutes
left so for any other questions I'll
take those otherwise we can just end it
cuz it's about an hour now let me just
me don't check I didn't miss any I think
all my misters I apologize I think I try
to get everyone's gonna look at okay
yeah sorry I think we got that all
thanks for bearing with me with the kind
of technical difficulties I don't really
know what happened but we got working
out yeah I mean you can always like
tweet at me if you have more questions
but I'll try to answer them but um but
yeah so hopefully you learned a little
bit microbes and you can see how cute
pink is thanks marine alright one more
thing before you go um we have venom
we'll be talking about multiple venom
types and different animals next week
with a whole bunch of different
scientists we've got mass the week after
that we've got genetics on March first
first birds with Jason Ward March 8th
astrophysics on March 11th planetary
science on March 14th and then we have a
whole bunch other than that if you go to
Skype science comm you can check out all
of our live streams this is only one of
two of about 30 that have been kind of
jerry-rigged like this so the rest
should be pretty normal so hopefully
we'll see you guys again our next
session thanks for coming
