Spiritual Beings Having A Bacterial Experience

Listening to Bonnie Bassler’s in this TED talk one can easily slip into the fascinating micro world of bacteria without getting the creepy crawlies.  I suppose the shock value of being told we are 10% human and 90% bacteria shifts your perspective pretty quickly.  While Bassler and her gang’s work in understanding bacterial communication has paradigm shifting implications for the medical community, at least two additional aspects stood out for me too.

Her description of the symbiotic relationship between the bacteria and the squid highlighted our loss as humans, in creating such sophisticated relationships with our environment and each other.

We humans could also take some lessons from the systems bacteria have for coordinating and communicating with their ‘own kind’ as well as ‘the other kinds’ – doing together what can’t be done alone.

Update 2009-04-09:  Food for thought from TED’s interview with Bassler yesterday on bacterial quorum sensing and where it may lead:

What really “costs” the bacteria something, is … to switch from the “alone” program to the program related to collective behavior in response to the signal molecules.

Maybe then it would make sense then for bacteria to “cheat.” … But if there were cheaters … there would be no benefit because it takes the whole group acting together to make quorum sensing behaviors successful.