General Microbiology - Introduction to the Microbial World

Flashcards reviewing fundamental concepts, prominent historical figures, tools, taxonomy, and branches of general microbiology based on introductory lecture slides.

Alcanivorax borkumensis

A naturally occurring oil-eating marine bacterium whose population skyrocketed following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, assisting in environmental cleanup.

Hippocrates

An ancient Greek physician, known as the 'father of Western medicine,' who asserted that diseases had natural causes rather than supernatural ones.

Thucydides

An ancient Greek historian who observed during the Athenian plague that survivors developed immunity and could not be reinfected.

Marcus Terentius Varro

An ancient Roman scholar who proposed that disease was caused by minute, unseen creatures floating in the air that enter the body through the mouth and nose.

Cloaca Maxima

The 'Greatest Sewer' of ancient Rome, designed to carry urban waste away from the city and discharge it into the river Tiber.

Spontaneous Generation

The historical notion that living organisms can spontaneously arise or develop from nonliving or decomposing matter.

Francesco Redi

An Italian physician who contested spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots on decaying meat originated from fly eggs rather than the meat itself.

John Needham

A proponent of spontaneous generation who showed that boiled mutton broth placed in sealed flasks still yielded microbial growth.

Lazzaro Spallanzani

A scientist who contradicted Needham's findings by sealing flasks of broth prior to boiling, resulting in no microbial growth.

Swan-Neck Flask Experiment

An experiment performed by Louis Pasteur in 1861 that definitively disproved spontaneous generation by allowing air into broth while trapping airborne microbes in a curved glass neck.

Robert Koch

A German physician who identified the causative agents of anthrax, cholera, and tuberculosis, and formulated four postulates to establish links between pathogens and specific diseases.

Bacteriology

The branch of microbiology dedicated to studying bacteria and their roles in medicine, industry, and the environment.

Virology

The branch of microbiology focused on viruses, viral structure, replication, and viral diseases.

Mycology

The scientific study of fungi, encompassing yeasts, molds, and fungal pathology.

Parasitology

The study of parasites, their life cycles, and their biological relationships with host organisms.

Immunology

The study of the immune system and host defense mechanisms against infection.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A microscopic yeast species that metabolizes carbohydrates in flour to produce carbon dioxide ($CO_2$), causing bread dough to rise.

Taxonomy

The scientific discipline of categorizing, naming, and classifying living organisms based on shared characteristics.

Carolus Linnaeus

A Swedish scientist who established a formal system of taxonomy in 1758 for categorizing plants and animals.

Ernst Haeckel

A biologist who proposed a four-kingdom classification system (Plantae, Protista, Animalia, and Monera) in his 1866 work General Morphology of Organisms.

Robert Whittaker

A researcher who added a fifth kingdom—Fungi—to the tree of life in 1969.

Woese and Fox Phylogenetic Tree

A genetic classification system based on ribosomal RNA sequence comparison that divides all cellular life into three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.

Inoculation Loop

A handheld laboratory tool with a small wire loop at the tip, used to transfer and streak microoganisms across solid growth media.

Growth Media

Liquid, solid, or gel preparations containing essential nutrients (water, salts, carbon sources like glucose, and nitrogen sources) designed to support microbial growth.

Microbial Size Scale

A comparative dimension scale where typical viruses measure around $100\,\text{nm}$, typical bacteria measure around $1\,\mu\text{m}$, and eukaryotic plant/animal cells measure $10\text{--}100\,\mu\text{m}$.