Scientists tweaked the genes of a bacterium
so that it requires caffeine to live and reproduce. Now, they can use
this microbe to measure concentrations of caffeine in beverages such as
soda, coffee and energy drinks. When the microbes are added to a
water-weakened version of one of those drinks, the bacteria grow and the
liquid turns cloudy — but only if the drink contained caffeine. In
caffeine-free Coke (top left), no cloudiness appears.
Credit: Barrick
Lab/University of Texas at Austin
4 comments:
Sophia siad,
I think that to many people are addicted to caffeine. I agree that this is just for the stimulant and is not for survival. Researchers recently found this amazing fiends that has to drink caffeine or it dies. I think that is is a bad idea to have the mico new microbe could clean up caffeine stains of water that contains caffeine, but it cool that the microbes also could help researchers measure the amount of caffeine in liquids. Considering that many plants contain caffeine. This new microbe could kill these plantes for their caffeine. Did you know that caffeine is also toxic to some types of plants, bacteria. This even counts frogs. Scientists have discovered that some soil bacteria can perform a trick. These microbes can break down caffeine and then use a byproduct to make guanine, a nutrient they need to grow and thrive. I also found out that Guanine is one of four key substances cells use to make DNA. The long molecule instructs each cell on what it should do.
Did you know when the genes they inserted didn’t work perfectly in this germ, the group added more genes. I wonder how that solved that problem. \
The uses for this microbe:
A water treatment for plants that could use the germ to remove caffeine and caffeine-based drugs from sewage. this is better than the normal way because normal water treatment processes don’t remove caffeine. It's amazing, using normal chemicals to remove pollutants that often occur in only tiny amounts can be very expensive. The new bacteria might be a more affordable way to do that.
Someday, the same sort of techniques can used to create the caffeine-consuming bacterium could be used to modify microbes that live in the human gut. Isn't that amazing. Those bacteria might be engineered to more effectively break down certain compounds in foods, helping digestion. Or maybe, they could even be designed to treat disease.
The group uses their designer E. coli to measure how much caffeine is in soft drinks and other beverages. They put some of the germs in a small amount of the beverage Then he lets the bacteria multiply until they run out of caffeine. Then they counts the microbes in the liquid. The researchers use that number to estimate how much caffeine had originally been in the drink.
BYE for now !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is actually kind of cool how they have created a microbe that needs caffeine to survive. I also think that it is great how the bacteria will help scientists with different experiments. I did not know that there was caffeine in different kinds of plants. I also did not know that bacteria can be deadly to some creatures. This was a very informative article. I really liked it.
The idea of a bacteria that can't live without coffee makes me have many questions. Some of those questions are are these bacteria more hyper? Well, are there hyper bacteria??? Would it be like a bacteria on steroids? Is that even possible ??? I wonder if this bacteria jumping around... Never mind that is stupid. Anyway this article taught me a lot.
This was pretty interesting. I agree with Savi. The fact that bacteria can't live without coffee is interesting, but why? Why can't they live without it? This is really interesting. It's cool to see the science behind everyday things.
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