Today’s interesting fact has to do with Tetrahymena thermophila.

This is a ciliated portozoan which has two types of cell nuclei, a somatic macronucleus and a smaller germline micronucleus that are always found in the cell.

The germline nucleus come in seven different varients which they have labled as sexes.

They can reproduce in 21 different combinations, but not with themselves.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with bacteria and antibiotic resistance.

This is a subject I could write on all day, so I will be doing several posts over the next few weeks on the subject.

When antibiotics were first introduced, many people who would have died from what we now consider minor infections instead lived and they were considered a modern miracle.

However many bacteria are developing antibiotic resistances.

Sometimes this occurs from mutations within their genome.

Just as often, it seems the bacteria are getting the genes from other bacteria.

It seems that bacteria have sex.

And not just with bacteria from their own species, but also from other bacterial species.

This is why so many diseases are more serious.