• even though the Flettner rotor bomblet was never mass-produced, William C. Patrick III called it "one of the better devices for disseminating microorganisms"?
• each year in the U.S., several sites complete soil contamination clean-up by using microbes that eat up toxic chemicals in soil?
• a fall of red rain in Kerala in 2001 might have contained microbes of extraterrestrial origin?
• microorganisms in the Archaea domain produce antimicrobial protein toxins known as archaeocins?

Facts on topics related to Microorganism

Bacteria

• Richard Lenski's long-term evolution experiment with E. coli has been tracking genetic changes in bacteria for over 20 years?
• ADP-ribosylation, a posttranslational protein modification, is involved in the actions of several bacterial toxins in diseases such as cholera and whooping cough?
• human skin flora includes roughly 1,000 species of bacteria?
• new bacterial species names are not considered valid until published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology?
• purity of the Sasthamkotta Lake water for drinking use is attributed to presence of a large number of larvae called cavaborus, which consume much of the lake's bacteria?
• some bacteria and parasitic protozoa escape extreme conditions like desiccation and unavailability of food by forming microbial cysts?
• the anticancer agent Salinosporamide A (skeletal formula pictured), which recently entered clinical trials, is produced by marine sediment-dwelling bacteria?
• the hslVU protein complex (pictured) that degrades damaged proteins in bacteria, probably resembles the evolutionary ancestor of the proteasome, a required component of all eukaryotic cells?
• the only effective way to manage the bacterial plant disease citrus canker is to destroy all infected citrus trees?

Fungus

• "bleeding tooth fungus" is a member of the woody toothed fungus genus Hydnellum (example pictured)?
• "little white", a mushroom in the fungal genus Trogia, has been implicated in the deaths of about 400 people in Yunnan, China?
• "pig's ears", fungal species Gomphus clavatus, are the only Gomphus species in North America?
• fungus Tricholoma pardinum (pictured) was responsible for over 20% of cases of mushroom poisoning in Switzerland in the first half of the 20th century?
• Scleroderris canker is a fungal disease among coniferous trees, sometimes spread by imported Christmas trees, that can kill an entire forest within a few years?
• Banksiamyces are fungi that grow on the dead "cones" of Banksia species?
• Cystoderma carcharias is considered an inedible fungus because of an unpleasant odor attributable to the presence of geosmin?
• Ornatifilum is likely to be the oldest known fossil fungus?
• English mycologist and plant pathologist R.W.G. Dennis has 40 fungal species named after him?
• because he misidentified the stalked lattice stinkhorn fungus (pictured) as a new species, George Atkinson was ridiculed in print by fellow mycologist Curtis Gates Lloyd?

Biology

• biologist Thomas Henry Manning, known as Lone Wolf of the Arctic, honeymooned with his wife for a year and a half while mapping Baffin Island?
• a Punnett square is a tool in genetics developed by British geneticist Reginald Punnett, and which biologists use to this day to predict the probability of possible genotypes of offspring?
• despite having a Ph.D. and being a foremost North American authority on the difficult mushroom genera Lactarius and Russula, Gertrude S. Burlingham only ever taught high school biology?
• the DC comic book Batman: The Last Arkham drew on the influences of psychology and biology books such as "Superstition in the Common Pigeon"?

Life

• Espiritismo is the Latin American and Caribbean belief that good and evil spirits can affect health, luck and other elements of human life?
• neocatastrophism is the theory that life-exterminating events such as gamma-ray bursts (pictured) in the Milky Way have stopped the advent of complex life elsewhere in its Galactic Habitable Zone?
• reification is a logical fallacy that occurs when qualities of a living being are attributed to an abstract concept?

Archaea

• microorganisms in the Archaea domain produce antimicrobial protein toxins known as archaeocins?

Microbiology

• Canadian microbiologist John Dick was the first to isolate and identify a cancer stem cell?
• soil conservation was first practiced by the Phoenicians, and today it embraces disciplines such as hydrology, microbiology and soil chemistry research?
• the water managed by the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company of London was once described by a microbiologist as "the most disgusting I have ever examined"?

Nature

• Stoic philosophy contrasts kathekonta, actions in accordance with nature, with "perfect actions" (katorthomata) derived from pure reason?
• Bron Taylor coined the term "dark green religion" as a set of beliefs characterized by a conviction that "nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is therefore due reverent care"?

Organism

• studies in phage ecology indicate that viruses may be the most abundant organisms on Earth?
• the work of medical research scientists (pictured) often includes toxic or radioactive materials and dangerous organisms?