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A polymer of galactose that is used as a gelling agent.
Agar
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A molecule that can kill or inhibit the growth of selected microorganisms.
Antibiotic
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A chemical that kills microbes.
Antiseptic
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One of the 3 domains of life, consisting of organisms with a last common ancestor not shared with members of Bacteria or Eukarya. Organisms are prokaryotic (lacking nuclei, unlike eukaryotes) and possesses ether-linked phospholipid membranes (unlike bacteria.)
Archaea
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A prokaryotic organism that is a member of the domain Archaea, distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes.
Archaeon
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Free of microbes.
Aseptic
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A device that uses pressurized steam to sterilize materials by raising the temperature above the boiling point of water at standard pressure.
Autoclave
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One of the 3 domains of life, consisting of organisms with a last common ancestor not shared with members of Archaea or Eukarya.
Bacteria
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A prokaryotic organism that is a member of the domain Bacteria, distinct from archaea and eukaryotes.
Bacterium (plural: bacteria)
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A community of microbes growing on a solid surface.
Biofilm
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The serial passage of a pathogenic organism from an infected individual to an uninfected individual, thus transmitting disease.
Chain of infection
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A theory stating that the products of oxidative metabolism store their energy in an electrochemical gradient that can drive cell processes such as ATP synthesis.
Chemiosmotic Theory
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An organism that oxidizes inorganic compounds to yield energy and reduce carbon dioxide.
Chemolithotroph (aka. chemoautotroph, lithotroph, chemolithoautotroph)
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A visible cluster of microbes on a plate, all derived from a single founding microbe.
Colony
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A technique to determine the order of bases in a DNA sample.
DNA sequencing
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A microscope that obtains high resolution and magnification by focusing electron beams on samples using magnetic lenses.
Electron microscope
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A series of membrane-embedded proteins that convert the energy of redox reactions into a proton potential.
Electron transport system (ETS) (aka electron transport chain)
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An organism that lives as a symbiont inside another organism.
Endosymbiont
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The use of selective growth media to allow only certain microbes to grow.
Enrichment culture
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One of the 3 domains of life, consisting of organisms with a last common ancestor not shared with members of Archaea or Bacteria.
Eukarya
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An organism that grows only in an extreme environment-- that is an environment including one or more conditions that are "extreme" relative to the conditions for human life.
Extremophile
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The production of ATP via substrate-level phosphorylation, using organic compounds as both electron donors and electron acceptors, Industrial fermentation is the production of microbial products that are made by microbes grown in fermentation vessels; it may include respiratory metabolism to maximize microbial growth.
Fermentation (aka fermentative metabolism)
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The complete genetic content of an organism. The sequence of all the nucleotides in a haploid set of chromosomes.
Genome
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The global interconversion of various inorganic and organic forms of elements.
Geochemical cycling
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The theory that many diseases are caused by microbes.
Germ theory of disease
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An organism's cellular defense system against pathogens.
Immune system
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The stimulation of an immune response by deliberate inoculation with a weakened pathogen, in hopes of providing immunity to disease caused by a pathogen.
Immunzation
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The sum of genomes of all members of a community of organisms.
Metagenome
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An organism or virus too small to be seen with the unaided human eye.
Microbe.
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A group of organisms that include an ancestral species and all of its descendants.
Monophyletic group (aka Clade)
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The ability of some prokaryotes to reduce inorganic diatomic nitrogen gas (N2) to 2 molecules of ammonium ion (2NH4+).
Nitrogen Fixation
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A round dish with vertical walls covered by an inverted dish of slightly larger diameter. The smaller dish can be filled with a substrate for growing microbes.
Petri dish
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The metabolic ability to absorb and convert solar energy into chemical energy for biosynthesis. Authotrophic photosynthesis, or photoautotrophy, includes CO2 fixation.
Photosynthesis
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A method to amplify DNA in vitro using many cycles of DNA denaturation, primer annealing, and DNA polymerization with a heat-stable polymerase.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
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Having multiple evolutionary origins.
Polyphyletic
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An organism whose cell or cells lack a nucleus; include both bacteria and archaea.
Prokaryote
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A culture containing only a single strain or species of microorganisms. A large number of microorganisms that all descended from a single individual cell.
Pure culture
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A model of early life in which RNA performed all the informational and catalytic roles of today's DNA and proteins.
RNA world
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The theory, much debated in the nineteenth century, that under current Earth conditions life can arise spontaneously from nonliving matter.
Spontaneous generation
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The genetic construction of novel organisms with useful functions.
Synthetic biology
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The internalization of free DNA from the environment into bacterial cells.
Transformation
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A machine that subjects samples to high centrifugal forces and can be used to separate subcellular components.
Ultracentrifuge
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Exposure of an individual to a weakened version of a microbe or a microbial antigen to provoke immunity and prevent development of disease upon reexposure.
Vaccination
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A noncellular particle containing a genome that can replicate only inside a cell.
Virus
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A column containing a stratified environment that causes specific microbes to grow at particular levels: a type of enrichment culture for the growth of microbes from wetland environments.
Winogradsky column
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