Conan the Bacterium 34
An anonymous reader writes "The world's toughest organism, able to withstand thousands of time more radiation than a human, is reported by the Weizmann Institute to have its secret to survival as a tightly packed DNA ring. Their Science article indicates that radiation-induced breakages are held tightly packed rather than floating off into the intracellular fluid. The bacteria,Deinococcus radiodurans, was discovered decades ago in canned food that was sterilized using radiation. Red patches appeared in the cans - colonies of the bacterium - setting off questions as to how it could have survived."
NExt up: (Score:5, Funny)
Funny?!?! WTF?!? I aint kidding. (Score:2)
I can only hope... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:minor nit (Score:1)
Considering that the plural of virus isn't "virii" (where would the extra 'i' come from anyway?), I don't think your argument holds much merit...
Re:minor nit (Score:4, Funny)
The plural of "bacteria" is actually not "bacterium," but rather "bacterii" (analogous to "virii").
Bullshitii
Bacteria is the plural of bacterium.
Re:minor nit (Score:2, Insightful)
The plural of "bacteria" is "bacteria". The singular form of "bacteria" is "bacterium". Try a dictionary, either paper or on-line.
I'm not even going to touch the "virii" thing. I think calling yourself a "minor nit" is an understatement.
Re:minor nit (Score:3, Interesting)
But viri is probably wrong. The "i" for plural thing turns out to be a product of some grammarian's fundamental misunderstanding of word derivations. Read this [aquarium.org] re the most famous example, octopus/octopi/octopoda/octopuses. In brief, "pus" means foot and it makes no sense to hack it up to make a plural.
Ever wonder why flammable and inflammable are synonymous? Same thing -- a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
As for bacteria -- that's already plural. Bacterium is singular. (I think.
Re:minor nit (Score:1)
means flammable?! Boy, what a country."
Re:minor nit (Score:4, Informative)
So, I guess it's "viruses" after all.
Re:minor nit (Score:2)
Apparently there IS a Latin plural word "viri" but it wasn't popular even with the people who spoke Latin. A good argument I read somewhere is that because virus is now an English word, make the plural in the English way -- add "es".
Really, do what works. I have to remind myself to drop octopi. It's fun to out-snob a snob, though.
Re:minor nit (Score:2)
I work at an educational institution so we get it for free. It's a bummer though because I can't use it at home. Oh well.
Personally, I wouldn't have guessed that the official plural form would be "viruses", it sounds too much like "walruses" to me.
Re:minor nit (Score:1)
I hate you.
If I had it in electronic form I know I'd waste all kinds of time browsing. The paper version is not quite so diverting, which for me is a good thing.
I see the CD-ROM is down to $295 [oup-usa.org]. One-fourth that and Mac compatibility, I'd be interested.... Heck, if they cut the price they might make *more* money. On the other hand, how many people have heard of the thing?
it sounds too much like "walruses" to me.
Um, you prefer
Interesting that viruses and bacteria, which people confuse anyway, both have confusing pluralization rules.
Re:minor nit (Score:2)
As a resident of Los Angeles, I'm eligible for an LAPL Library card. With that, I can go to their website, punch in my card number and ZIP code, and go through their subscription to the OED and other fantastic things... from home.
Libraries are so underrated.
OED (Score:1)
Re:minor nit (Score:1)
Bacterion in Greek, bacterium in fake Latin (Score:1)
Re:Bacterion in Greek, bacterium in fake Latin (Score:1)
I think generally questions like this should governed by rules of the sdopting language, English. Different rules for different root languages are just unfair, as I see teaching my son to spell!
Grammar Nits Make Me Laugh (Score:2)
What? You don't realize language is designed by kids? Go study the formation of new ones, usually the result of multiple societies being crammed together by the latest political upheaval. The parents make the pidgin, which is pretty terrible. The kids make the creole, which is astonishingly correct.
It's not that Virii is right or wrong. It's that Viruses is inconvenient to speak -- it adds a redundant syllable, especially if you try to tack on possession (viruses' make write nicely, but vi-ruh-sis-izz-izz is a nightmare).
We need a better way to say this, but we don't have a good way of converting "-us" into a plural. So we try -ii, based off what we saw happen in, er, some word somewhere -- perhapps based on symmetry with the i early in virus. But lots of other people call bullshit(ii), and demand justification and reasoning and bla bla bla.
Whatever. It's all made by kids to make it easy to say stuff. Quit acting like the world is going to come to and end if it's not precisely like the way a bunch of dead people spoke
--Dan
Re:Grammar Nits Make Me Laugh (Score:1)
I assume viri was never a popular term in the decades we actually known about them. Octopi is just plain dumb.
Conan the Librarian (Score:2)
Re:Conan the Librarian? (Score:3, Interesting)
I like that the name "radiodurans" encapsulates literally the bacteria's claim to fame. How about "Radioduran the Radical"?
"The red bacterium can withstand 1.5 million rads-a thousand times more than any other life form on Earth and three thousand that of humans" -- do they mean all life forms complex and bacteria plus other single-celled organisms? If so, I would indeed wonder whether this bacteria came from somewhere else
Evolve away? (Score:1)
Not that they're immune from evolution, but I'd imagine that a species with a much lower mutation rate than normal is not going to change very often.
Re:Conan the Librarian (Score:1)
Now all we have to do is... (Score:2, Funny)
Then surely (Score:2)
Numerical Comparisons (Score:5, Interesting)
For a numerical comparison I found some rough numbers for what other living organisms can survive. The unit of radiation used is a Gray, which is the unit used to measure the absorbed dosage of radiation. It does not tell relate the biological effects of that radiation.
These numbers are ones I received from a radiation safety lecture at CERN. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the numbers. But remember, they are obtained from non-controlled experiments (like nuclear accidents) and are an estimates of the amount of dosage needed to kill said organism.
Now according to the Science magazine article, the bacteria, Deinococcus radiodurans can stand up to 15,000 Gy of radiation!
Re:Numerical Comparisons (Score:4, Interesting)
The cost of this feature? (Score:1)
Conan the Bacterium (Score:2)
now, all I need is a gene (Score:1)