The other day I was interviewed on KUCI-FM in Irvine, California, about the evolution of bacteria in yogurt. You can listen to the podcast here.
Originally published June 14, 2006. Copyright 2006 Carl Zimmer.
Author: Lori Jia
Scientists have figured out many ways to study the origin of species. They can build evolutionary trees, to see how species descend from a common ancestor. They can survey islands or mountains or lakes to see how ecological conditions foster the rise of new species. They can look for fossils that offer clues to how long ago species branched off from one another, and how their ranges spread or shrank. Now comes a new trick in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature: to test their ideas about how a new species of butterfly came to be, they essentially recreated it in their lab.
Greetings. As I bring in my html luggage and unpack, let me stop for a moment to introduce myself and this blog.
I’m a science writer. I started out at Discover, where I ended up as a senior editor before heading out into the freelance world in 1999. Since then I’ve written for a number of magazines, and over the last couple years I’ve been writing pretty regularly for the Science Times section of the New York Times.
I also write books, which I’ve placed in the left column for those who are interested. I’m now trying to crank through the sixth, a biography of Escherichia coli (at least when I’m not bogged down in the mysteries of Moveable Type).
When we speak of the Hobbit, let us not forget her tools.
Last year, scientists reported discovering fossils of a three-foot-tall hominid that they named Homo floresiensis, and which I can’t keep myself from calling the Hobbit. Its bones turned up in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, dating from 97,000 to 12,000 years ago. The scientists argued that the Hobbit represented an ancient lineage of hominids, perhaps descending from Homo erectus, a human-sized species that existed in Asia 1.8 million years ago, or perhaps belonging to even an older lineage, known as australopithecines.
The New York Times, May 30, 2006
About 5,000 years ago, cattle herders discovered how to make yogurt. Scientists are now discovering that they also mounted an unplanned experiment in evolution.
Certain species of bacteria are responsible for turning milk into yogurt. As the microbes feed on sugar in the milk, they produce acidic wastes that cause the milk to clot. They also make the yogurt uninhabitable for other bacteria, preventing it from spoiling. And by breaking down some milk proteins into smaller pieces, they give yogurt its distinctive flavor.
Continue reading “Bacterial Evolution in the Yogurt Ecosystem”