BIOL 238 Review 2009

This page provides review questions for BIOL 238 (Spring 2009). Answers may be posted by students.

Chapter 1

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1. What historical discoveries in microbiology, both medical and environmental, laid the foundation for the discovery by Rita Colwell and Anwar Huq of an inexpensive way for Bangladeshi villagers to prevent cholera?

2. The Colwell interview depicts three different ways of visualizing microbes. What are the capabilities and limitations of each method? Which method(s) would have been available before Leeuwenhoek? By Leeuwenhoek? For Peter Mitchell and Jennifer Moyle?

3. Compare the "family tree" of life as drawn by Herbert Copeland, Robert Whittaker, Lynn Margulis, and Carl Woese. How were they similar, and how did they differ? How did their differences relate to different tools available for study?

4. Outline the different contributions to medical microbiology and immunnology of Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and Florence Nightingale. What methods and assumptions did they have in common, and how did they differ?

5. Does the human immune system react similarly to both attenuated pathogens and more active pathogens?

6. Outline the different contributions to environmental microbiology of Sergei Winogradsky and Martinus Beijerinck. Why did it take longer for the significance of environmental microbiology to be recognized, as compared with pure-culture microbiology?

7. It is always necessary to prepare a tissue culture to study viruses, as they can't grow without a host cell. Do certain bacteria need tissue in their cultures?

Chapter 2

1. Explain what features of bacteria you can study by: light microscopy; fluorescence microscopy; scanning EM; transmission EM.

2. Explain the difference between detection and resolution. Explain how resolution is increased by magnification; why can't the details be resolved by your unaided eye? Explain why magnification reaches a limit; why can it not go on resolving greater detail?

3. Explain why artifacts appear, even with the best lenses. Explain how you can tell the difference between an optical artifact and an actual feature of an image.

4. How can "detection without resolution" be useful in microscopy? Explain specific examples of dark-field observation, and of fluorescence microscopy.

5. Explain how the Gram stain works. What are its capabilities and limitations? How does the Gram stain relate to bacterial phylogeny?