Lunar Bovine - Jason Cobill's Weblog » Bonnie Bassler http://lunarbovine.com/blog Because sometimes I do things that are interesting. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:15:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Bonnie Bassler’s Amazing TED Talk http://lunarbovine.com/blog/2009/04/bonnie-basslers-amazing-ted-talk/ http://lunarbovine.com/blog/2009/04/bonnie-basslers-amazing-ted-talk/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:53:50 +0000 jcobill http://lunarbovine.com/blog/?p=300 Here’s another incredible TED talk that really jumpstarted my imagination – this one about the chemical signalling that bacteria use to communicate and launch attacks on host organisms. The applications for her research are huge – this could lead to a new kind of antibiotic treatment, and down the road we could be managing bacterial colonies by disrupting their communications. No more food poisoning, no more UTIs, no more E-Coli. (No more smelly feet!)

There’s applications further afield though – it’s a fascinating control system for any kind of process involving the co-ordination of large groups. It makes me want to write a flash game with inert armies that pass messages to eachother while mingling about, trying to get the best ground to launch their attack.

Plus, the shadowless squid thing is really really cool.

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