In the series of essays The Language of Bacteria, we discussed some ways that bacteria are able to fight against us. Specifically, we know that bacteria can protect themselves under coated biofilms, or they can pass around genes to make them unresponsive to antibiotics.

When life begins, it starts as a zygote – a single cell with genetic material from two parents. The first job of that cell is to divide. Then those cells divide, and those cells divide, and on and on. As they divide, they get smaller and smaller, and the embryo remains the same size as the original zygote.

Today, doctors treat infections and diseases almost exclusively with antibiotics. However, bacteria have two big ways of fighting back: they can pass around genes for antibiotic resistance, and they can coat themselves under biofilms to keep antibiotics at bay. In this ongoing chess game, the move is now ours. What strategies should we take as we continue the fight for health among communicating superbugs?

In the last essay, we covered how bacteria share helpful genes with each other, and what that means for the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria (“superbugs”).

Another aspect of the bacterial world is that of chemicals and molecules. When you live in the world as a single cell, you cannot eat the kind of food we do, and you cannot interact with your environment the way we do.

What if I told you that bacteria can communicate? With each other, with bacteria of different species (and thus, of a different “language”), and even with you?

Part of developmental biology studies how the environment affects the diversity and development of various organisms. Such factors can be abiotic, biotic, or symbiotic. Here, I focus on oceanic ecosystems and organisms to epitomize each type of factor and how they (in these cases) improve biodiversity.

Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston, both professors of evolution, ecology, and genetics, are the authors of the latest edition of a widely-used college entomology textbook entitled, "The Insects: An Outline of Entomology". These two evolutionists begin the third chapter with this statement: "The dissected open body of an insect is a complex and compact masterpiece of functional design."

Today I was reading in my Understanding the Times book for my worldview class. This week we're learning about what various worldviews believe about biology. Postmodernists don't like to claim one belief over another, because that would be imposing their truth on someone else. Postmodernists believe that there is no absolute truth (note that the statement, "There is no absolute" is itself an absolute). Anyway, I read this quote by Christian author Nancy Pearcey.