Learning how the microbes work is an ongoing process. Scientist learn one new thing and that opens up other possibilities. Microbial physiology is a science dealing with the makeup of microbes. It is part of the peculiar and important makeup of the living cells that spur scientist onward in their work to learn more. They narrow that process down to all microorganisms to gain an entry into the study of physiology as it relates to life. People, scientist in particular, are curious about how these small organisms go about their daily lives of acting, breathing, and reproducing.
While the learning their secrets of the microbes, much light is shed on how to control diseases, how to cure disease, how to prolong life, and how to deal with the associated longevity that brings on Alzheimer’s, and other decreasing physiological conditions that either reduce or enhance the quality of life.
To get at the core of physiology of microorganisms would take volumes. This general category of how these minute organisms work is vast. How to begin is problematic: Should scientists, or even researchers, concentrate on animal or plants or both and how they get their energy, how they manufacture their food, how they propagate, or should that be bypassed and more emphasis placed on specific functions of particular organism during a particular process?
Google will answers enough to satisfy curious searchers. As an example, they could be directed toward an enticing article by Leslie H Kierkegaard. In Ecosystem Physiology she describes an energizing action she calls “The Plant Microbe Dance”. She very capably describes this dance and, in effect, shows us the difference between a healthy plant specimen and a sick one. It has to do with the soil microorganisms. If some of these are not just right, then a less than healthy orchid will develop.
From Google Book Search, other interesting volumes can be made known.”Genetics and Physiology of Microbes” by Rojan S. Sandara will supply other answers. In chapter seventeen he deals with photosynthesis, how light is utilized in the various ways microbes do their work. Respiration, enzyme activity, bioenergetics and anything anyone would like to know about microbes, can be found in this book.
If more facts are desired that are easily understood, researchers can go to the children’s section. There, simplicity cuts through the jargon and explains theories in words unscientific, but curious, onlookers can understand. K8 Science is a good place to start, or if that does not ring Google’s bells, try BioED online. Very good useable information for prospective future scientists was found: To learn more check out .kid science.org/hot-topics.
The good news I learned here is that scientists are honing in on the physiology of the staphylococcus microbe and is learning more of its ability to withstand an onslaught of penicillin.
“Researchers are beginning to unravel the inner mechanisms of MRSA infections. For example, recent studies show that CA-MRSA secretes higher amounts of a peptide (compared with other strains of staph) that causes neutrophils (immune cells) to burst, thereby debilitating the immune system. It also produces proteins that make the microbe stickier, so it can invade tissue more easily.”
(Mary Pat Bolton, MA RD. LD, What is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)? January 2, 2008)With all the gloom and doom associated with physiology of microbes, all should have at a general knowledge of how microbial physiology works.
