Viruses: Viruses do not belong to the above 5 kingdoms of life.

They are much sm

aller and much less complex than cells. They are macromolecular units composed o
f DNA or RNA surrounded by an outer protein shell. They have no membrane-bound o
rganelles, no ribosomes (organelle site of protein synthesis), no cytoplasm (liv
ing contents of a cell), and no source of energy production of their own. They d
o not exhibit autopoiesis--i.e. they do not have the self-maintenance metabolic
reactions of living systems.
It was in 1882 that Fannie Hesse suggested replacing gelatin with agar4. Fannie,
wife of Walther Hesse, was working in Koch s laboratory as her husband s technician
and had previously used agar to prepare fruit jellies after hearing about its g
elling properties from friends. Agar is a polysaccharide derived from red seawee
ds, and proved to be a superior gelling agent. Agar has remarkable physical prop
erties: it melts when heated to around 85oC, and yet when cooled doesn t gel until
34-42oC. Agar is also clearer than gelatin and it resists digestion by bacteria
l enzymes. The use of agar allows the creation of a medium that can be inoculate
d at 40oC in its cooled molten state and yet incubated at 60oC without melting.
Fanny s breakthrough with agar-agar was what brought them lasting fame. Though it s
simply called agar now, the substance used in microbiology labs is the same one
that originated in Fanny Hesse s kitchen.
pure culture, in microbiology, a laboratory culture containing a single species
of organism. A pure culture is usually derived from a mixed culture (one contai
ning many species) by transferring a small sample into new, sterile growth mediu
m in such a manner as to disperse the individual cells across the medium surface
or by thinning the sample manyfold before inoculating the new medium. Both meth
ods separate the individual cells so that, when they multiply, each will form a
discrete colony, which may then be used to inoculate more medium, with the assur
ance that only one type of organism will be present. Isolation of a pure culture
may be enhanced by providing a mixed inoculum with a medium favouring the growt
h of one organism to the exclusion of others.
Microorganisms have been mutating and evolving on Earth for billions of years. N
ow, a field of
research has developed around the idea of using microorganisms to study evolutio
n in action.
Controlled and replicated experiments are using viruses, bacteria and yeast to i
nvestigate how
their genomes and phenotypic properties evolve over hundreds and even thousands
of
generations. Here, we examine the dynamics of evolutionary adaptation, the genet
ic bases of
adaptation, tradeoffs and the environmental specificity of adaptation, the origi
n and evolutionary
consequences of mutators, and the process of drift decay in very small populatio
ns.