Lecture 1: Microbe History & Intro

Question 1

What are microorganisms?

Answer 1

Any living organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye

Question 2

What is the theory of spontaneous generation?

Answer 2

The theory that living creatures could arise without parents

Question 3

Which bacterium caused the Black Death?

Answer 3

Yersinia pestis

Question 4

Who invented the compound microscope?

Answer 4

Robert Hooke

Question 5

Who first observed single-celled organisms?

Answer 5

Antoine Van Leeuwenhoek

Question 6

What did Francesco Redi’s experiment demonstrate?

Answer 6

Rotting meat does not turn into flies; only flies can make more flies

Question 7

What did Louis Pasteur’s swan-necked flask experiment prove?

Answer 7

Air alone does not enable spontaneous generation of microorganisms

Question 8

What is the Germ Theory of Disease?

Answer 8

Many diseases are caused by microbes

Question 9

What are Koch’s Postulates?

Answer 9

Guidelines for examining causal relationships between microorganisms and disease

Question 10

What is the first step of Koch’s Postulates?

Answer 10

Find the diseased organism that is harboring the microorganism

Question 11

What is the second step of Koch’s Postulates?

Answer 11

Isolate the microorganism from the diseased organism and grow in a pure culture

Question 12

What is the third step of Koch’s Postulates?

Answer 12

Introduce cultured microorganism into a healthy organism

Question 13

What is the fourth step of Koch’s Postulates?

Question 14

What did Lady Mary Montagu introduce to Europe in 1717?

Answer 14

The practice of smallpox inoculation

Question 15

What is the definition of immunization?

Answer 15

The stimulation of an immune response by inoculation with an attenuated pathogen or piece of a pathogen

Question 16

Who discovered penicillin?

Answer 16

Alexander Fleming

Question 17

What infectious agent causes Tobacco Mosaic Disease?

Answer 17

Tobacco Mosaic Virus

Question 18

What is the role of endosymbionts?

Answer 18

Microbes living symbiotically inside a larger organism

Question 19

According to Lynn Margulis’s Endosymbiont Theory, what are mitochondria and chloroplasts?

Answer 19

Bacteria and cyanobacteria that were engulfed or infected by other species

Question 20

What gene is studied to understand the microbial family tree?

Answer 20

16S rRNA gene

Question 21

What is the significance of E. coli in genetics?

Answer 21

It has the best understood genome

Question 22

Fill in the blank: Microbes are a part of us; humans, animals, and plants are colonized with _______.

Answer 22

[microbes]