Word: bacterium
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While some of the properties of viruses were becoming evident in the 1920s, no one had yet seen one; on the average, scientists now know, viruses are ten to 100 times as small as the typical bacterium, and in fact far smaller than the wavelength of visible light. That makes them too diminutive to be seen with the most powerful optical microscopes. But in 1931 the invention of the electron microscope -- for which German Physicist Ernst Ruska finally won the Nobel Prize this year -- broke the light barrier. The new instrument -- along with a technique called X-ray crystallography...
Swinging wires held to his chest in mimicry of a bacterium, Professor of Biology Howard C. Berg discussed mechanisms bacteria use to move at the end of the lecture...
...just can't help but be amazed by it," he said. "I think of [the bacterium] as a ballet dancer...
Berg explained that a motor analogous to a bacterium's locomotion power would produce 6000 r.p.m., 10 horsepower, and 16 cylinders...
...Berkeley team had focused its efforts on the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, which lives on the leaves of many plants and actually promotes the formation of frost. As the temperature drops below 32 degrees F, specks of protein produced by the bacteria act as nuclei for the growth of ice crystals (see chart). Without the bacteria and their protein particles, plants can briefly sustain temperatures as low as 25 degrees F before the dew turns to frost. The solution seemed simple enough: from 2% to 5% of the bacteria in nature lack the ability to manufacture the protein. If large numbers...