Friday, May 29, 2009

Friday TED Talk: Bonnie Bassler on How Bacteria Communicate

This is one of the more intriguing scientific talks given at the TED 2009 conference. You will learn things you never knew about how bacteria interact with each other, through a form of bacterial "Esperanto", and with humans---such as that in terms of cells in your body, you are only 10% human, and 90% bacteria. Dr. Bonnie Bassler, who runs a microbiology lab at Princeton, shows how collective behavior in bacteria were most likely the precursor to the multicellular coordination that lies at the heart of how our body works. (Could all of us in ECUSA perhaps learn something from this?) 

Dr. Bassler really knows her stuff. She enjoys teaching it, and learning along with her students!






Enhanced, high-res version is here. More links to download audio/video are here. A brief bio of Dr. Bassler is here, and her faculty homepage at Princeton is here. There is also an extended interview with her at this link.

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