How bacteria "talk" - Bonnie Bassler

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-bacteri...

Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria "talk" to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry -- and our understanding of ourselves.

Talk by Bonnie Bassler.

• Category

  Education

[JimmyGr90]

Give her some more time.. my heart rate's gone up!

[Daniel J. De Jesús]

Humans are so pedantic. They always think they are the better species. 

[lmhorowitz]

How sad that you feel the need to criticize  a fascinating talk

[Ahnaf Ahmad]

Prokaryotes are believed to be the origin of eukaryotes (us). So technically we are bacteria because we evolved from them.

[Sarcrasstic]

I think there is just a misunderstanding. Yes, if you filled a room with smoke, and everyone started coughing that would not be a great analogy for quorum sensing. However, if your lungs produced smoke, and made other lungs produce smoke, and they made other lungs produce smoke, and this led to some kind of joint activity from all of the lungs, then that is analogous to quorum sensing.

That is why she refers to it as a language, because the cells are producing signals that influence other cells

[gus bisbal]

The issue is that it amkes the bacteria sound like they are responding to each other. They are not.They have no connection with each other. Its like saying when you fill a room with smoke, every one agrees to cough. You cough all on your own as a result of the concentration of smoke in your environment. There is no communication with anyone

[Evrabeet]

She is explaining this as if you would be 5 years old, she keeps it on a simple level. And that's why it became interesting.

[twistedbass15]

GENIUS !! Cracking talk !!

[Larry Chang]

Wonderful presentation on so many levels. Naturally, the ones i focus on demonstrate the PANACEA system: the idea of independent holons that make up a holarchies, data exchange, cooperation and emergent effects. The sovereignty of bacterial communities is recognized and a NPV index is assigned to them. (Don't envy who has to count them.)

[joeboyle20]

Whore

[gus bisbal]

she says at some point and then they decide....

It pissed me off enough that she calls a chemical concetration a language but to say that they decide, is just stupid and has no factual base.

This shows that education in one area doesn't stop you being an idiot in another area.

Intellegnce is trained it is not a characteristic or else she would know that they are not thinking and deciding they are reacting to stimulous. A mouse trap does not decide to close.