[HN Gopher] Bacteria in Polymers Form Cables That Grow into Livi...
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       Bacteria in Polymers Form Cables That Grow into Living Gels
        
       Author : gmays
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2025-01-23 17:09 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.caltech.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.caltech.edu)
        
       | asimpletune wrote:
       | It's fascinating that this could either be beneficial to
       | bacteria, by forming larger bodies and making it more difficult
       | to be attacked by immune systems, or detrimental, by clumping up
       | and then being cleaned up by hairs within the body, such as the
       | lungs. I imagine the answer is both, depending on the context.
        
       | daneel_w wrote:
       | I make kombucha* at home and observe something similar whenever I
       | start a new batch using a small piece of culture taken from an
       | old container. Either the yeast or the bacteria - or both in
       | symbiosis - form the typical stringy structures seen in so many
       | petri dishes, that radiate from the "mother" outwards to the
       | edges of the container. As time passes, each area isolated
       | between the crossing strings slowly thickens on the surface and
       | eventually merge with the rest of the growth as a single colony.
       | 
       | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-26 23:02 UTC)