Question: What is the most interesting bacteria you have come across

Samuel Ellis answered on 11 Mar 2015:

Often what is most interesting about bacteria is not what they are, but what they can do.

One thing I find pretty cool is that a number of bacteria types seem to get super-powered in space! Examples such as E.coli (which I work on, tho not in space!) and salmonella have been shown to get way better at pretty much everything in zero gravity. They grow faster, become better at causing disease, and resist the effect of antibiotics way more than normal. They’ve tested this not just in simulated zero gravity on earth, but actually take samples up to the International Space Station to do experiments (A lot of Astronauts these days are actually very good scientists!). Of course this could be a problem in the future if we start travelling to other planets for example, as we would have to deal with these super-bacteria.

Another cool (but nasty) bacteria is Yersinia pestis, which caused the famous Black Death plagues you have probably learnt about in History. Thankfully it is very rare in most of the world these days 🙂