---

• n  (microbiology) single-celled or noncellular spherical or spiral or rod-shaped organisms lacking chlorophyll that reproduce by fission; important as pathogens and for biochemical properties; taxonomy is difficult; often considered to be plants

• Living things don't get a whole lot humbler than a bacterium, with its few hundred thousand genetic base pairs and its stripped-down physical design.
• While the streptococcus bacterium is very common -- it causes the strep throat that everyone catches sooner or later -- the publicized cases involve a deadly variant of the germ .
• There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion.

• bacteria

News & Articles

---

• EIN News Offers Latest News on Antibiotic-Resistant Salmonella
  WASHINGTON, June 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The bacterium is known as "Salmonella Kentucky," and its rapid spread around the globe is of increasing concern to health researchers.The Institut Pasteur in Paris and Morocco calls the antibiotic-resistant disease "astonishing" for how quickly it has moved through Africa and the Middle East. Canadian health authorities estimate that ...
  June 20, 2013 - PR Newswire via Yahoo! News
• Natural Acne Remedy, Probiotic Action Explains the Science behind Using Probiotics for Better Health
  A recent article by Fox News shed light on the growing use of probiotics for several types of ailments, claiming it to be a “miracle food” when ingested. Probiotic Action, best known for their probiotic acne treatment explains the science behind these “miracle” bacterium. (PRWeb June 19, 2013) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/6/prweb10849004.htm
  June 19, 2013 - PRWeb
• New approach to battling tuberculosis
  Scientists have discovered a drug that cripples tuberculosis bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) in a novel way, by dissolving the protecting fatty coating of the bacteria. The drug killed the bacterium in culture without the emergence of drug resistance.
  June 18, 2013 - Science Daily

Quotes

---

• Ruslana Lyzhychko in Cornell Chronicle
  DlaT's main job is to help M. tuberculosis get energy from nutrients. But when the bacterium is under stress, it also uses the enzyme to defend itself against oxidative damage from human immune cells, such as macrophages,explains study lead...
• St Brendan in Science Daily (press release)
  The spore is the infectious agent of anthrax. It's how the bacterium persists in the natural environment, and it's what terrorists would manipulate in a bioterrorism attack,says Brendan Thomason, a UM graduate student and a co-author of the...
• James Naismith in innovations report
  Wza's shape and position in the cell membrane allows the bacterium to perform a very difficult trick, says Professor James Naismith of the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences at the University of St Andrews. "It acts much like an airlock. Wza...