Micro and More FUN FACTS!

for the 2nd round of the dutch biology olympiad, I got a booklet called "Micro en Meer" to study. I found the contents very interesting and here are the facts i read that i would consider to be fun facts!

Did you know that...

• scientists use coloring to differetiate between different types of bacteri? (It's called Gram Stain
• plants can also get tumors and these are somtimes caused by bacteria?
• 2/3rds of the antibiotics used in hospitals are made by one genus of bacteria? (the Streptomyces
• Cytosine and Thymine are called the pyrimidines? (it kinda sounds like pyramids, thats why its funny)
• GC and AT are the base pairs that are most likely, AC and GT are technically also possible?
• chromosomes can be circular (in prokaryotes)?
• chromosomes are normally placed like this: ?
• there are things called transposable elements, which are short bits of DNA that can move across longer pieces of DNA?
• in prokaryotes translation and transcription can happen at the same time?
• one gene can code for different proteins because of alternative splicing
• pathogens (often) create proteins for virulence when they enter a host, because the higher temperature causes the stem-loop of the mRNA to break, which makes it possible for the ribosome to connect to it and start making the protein?
• the speed at which the ribosome moves over the mRNA has an impact on the secondary struture of the mRNA, and can , for intance, have an effect on transcription?
• bacteria can be made competent to take up DNA from their surroundings by giving them some kind of shock (heat, or electric for example)?
• when two haploid hypha fuse together, their nuclei don't fuse together so they just have two nuclei
• hypha can mave multiple of the same nucleus
• in 1 gram of earth there are 10^5 to 10^6 fungi, 10^3 to 10^5 protozoa, 10 to 10^2 nematodes and 4x10^6 to 2x10^9 bacteria?
• guesses of the amount of species of bacteria vary from 35498 to 10^7/10^9 different species?
• every person has their own microflora with around 10^14 bacteria, which weighs about one kilogram, and is nearly more than 10 times the amount of human cells in a full grown body?!
• 1 kilogram of the toxin produced by the tetanus bacterium would be enough to kill the entire world population?
• the last time a new class of antibiotics was discovered was in 1987?
• there is a new class of antibiotics being tested for safety? (Teixobatcin)
• bacteria are resistent to antibiotics when less than 60% of patients can be cured without serious side effects?
• bacteria can communicate with each other by using Quorum Sensing (QS)? (this type of "communication is only used to create biofilm)
• there are organisms that are photoheterothophes which means they both use external sources of energy aswell as light?
• bacteria are responsible for 30 to 50% of N2 produced in the ocean?
• bacteria can also "communicate" with each other because of the fact that they excrete chemicals that can be a chemoattractant or repellant for another organism?
• the QS signal can be a chemoattractant for other organisms, for example the human immune system, this way the body can protect itself from bad bacteria.