Microbe Scavenger Hunt



Microbe Scavenger Hunt 1

Directions: You are going to go online to find the latest information about microbes from the American Society for Microbiology at .

Go to my webpage at > School (GCMS) > Staff (Isabella D’Agostino) > Viruses and Bacteria Page > Microbe Scavenger Hunt 1.Use the hyperlinks within the document to navigate the site and complete the statements that follow.

What is a Microbe?

Microbes are ___________________ organisms so tiny that ________________ can fit into the eye of a needle.

Microbe fossils date back more than ______________________ to a time when the earth was covered with oceans.

Without microbes, we couldn’t _______ or __________.

Microbes are in the _______ we breathe, the ____________ we walk on, the ______________ we eat – they’re even inside ______!

1. We couldn’t _____________ food without them – animals couldn’t, either.

2. Without microbes, plants couldn’t ___________, garbage wouldn’t ____________, and there would be a lot less _______________ to breathe.

Types of Microbes (Click Types of Microbes on the left-hand menu.)

1. Microbes can be divided into six main types:

a. ___________________

b. ___________________

c. ___________________

d. ___________________

e. ___________________

f. ___________________

Bacteria (Click Bacteria on the left-hand menu.)

1. Bacteria consist of only a single ________________.

2. Bacteria have been found that can live in temperatures above the _________________ point and in cold that would ____________ your blood.

3. There’s even a species of bacteria – Deinococcus radiodurans – that can withstand blasts of radiation 1,000 times greater than would kill a human being.

Classification

4. Bacteria fall into a category of life called the ____________________.

5. Prokaryotes’ genetic material or DNA is not enclosed in a cellular compartment called the _______________________.

How Long They’ve Been Around

6. Bacteria are among the earliest forms of life that appeared on Earth __________ of years

ago.

7. Scientists think they helped shape and change the young planet’s environment, eventually

creating atmospheric ______________ that enabled other, more complex life forms to

develop.

8. Many believe that more complex ___________ developed as once free-living bacteria took up residence in other cells, eventually becoming the ___________ in modern complex cells.

9. The __________________ that make energy for your body cells is one example of such an organelle.

What They Look Like (Click What They Look Like on the left-hand menu.)

1. There are ____________________ of species of bacteria, but all of them are basically one of _______ different shapes. Some are ________ or stick-shaped and called _______________.

2. Others are shaped like little balls and called _____________.

3. Others still are helical or _________________ in shape, like the Borrelia pictured at the top of this page.

4. Some bacterial cells exist as _________________while others ____________ together to form pairs, chains, squares, or other groupings.

Where They’re Found (Click Where They’re Found on the left-hand menu.)

1. Bacteria live on or in just about every __________________ and environment on Earth from soil to water to air, and from your _____________ to arctic ___________ to ________________ vents.

2. Each square centimeter of your skin averages about ____________________ bacteria.

3. A single teaspoon of topsoil contains more than ____________________ bacteria.

What They Eat (Click What They Eat on the left-hand menu.)

1. Some bacteria are __________________________ - they can make their own food from sunlight, just like plants.

2. Also like plants, they give off ____________________.

3. Other bacteria absorb food from the material they live on or in. Some of these bacteria can live off unusual “foods” such as ______________ or sulfur.

4. The microbes that live in your gut absorb __________________ from the digested food you’ve eaten.

How They Move (Click How They Move on the left-hand menu.)

1. Some bacteria move about their environment by means of long, whip-like structures called _____________________.

2. Other bacteria secrete a ______________________ layer and ooze over surfaces like __________________.

3. Others are fairly ________________________.

Archaea and Other Extremists (Click Archaea on the left-hand menu.)

Types of Archaea

1. There are three main types of archaea:

a. ___________________

b. ___________________

c. ___________________

2. Archaea look a lot like _________________. So much so that until the late 1970s, scientists assumed they were a kind of “weird” bacteria.

3. Then microbiologist Carl Woese devised an ingenious method of comparing ______________ information showing that they could not rightly be called bacteria at all. Their genetic recipe is too different.

Classification

4. Archaeans are single-celled creatures that join bacteria to make up a category of life called the _______________________.

5. Prokaryotes’ genetic material, or DNA, is not enclosed in a central cellular compartment called the ________________.

6. Bacteria and archaea are the only ____________________.

7. All other life forms are _______________________________, creatures whose cells have nuclei.

Early Origins

8. Archaeans are among the __________________ forms of life that appeared on Earth

billions of years ago.

9. It’s now generally believed that the archaea and bacteria developed separately from a

___________ ancestor nearly 4 billion years ago.

10. Millions of years later, the ancestors of today’s eukaryotes split off the archaea. So historically, archaeans are more closely related to _________ than they are to bacteria.

What They Look Like (Click What They Look Like on the left-hand menu.)

1. Some archaea look like little __________ or tiny balls, and some even get around like bacteria using long hair- or whip-like appendages called ________________ that stick out of their cell walls.

2. Like bacteria, archaea lack a true __________________.

Where They’re Found (Click Where They’re Found on the left-hand menu.)

1. Archaea comes from the Greek word meaning “_______________.”

2. An appropriate name, because many archaea thrive in conditions mimicking those found more than __________________ years ago.

3. Back then, the earth was still covered by oceans that regularly reached the boiling point — an extreme condition not unlike the __________________ vents and ______________ waters where archaea are found today.

4. In addition to superheated waters, archaea have been found in acid-laden ____________ around old mines, in frigid _________________ ice and in the super-salty waters of the ______________________.

What They Eat (Click What They Eat on the left-hand menu.)

1. Archaeans dine on a variety of substances for energy including _______________ gas, carbon _________________ and sulfur.

2. One type of salt-loving archaean uses _________________ to make energy, but not the way plants do.

3. This archaean has a light-harvesting pigment in the ________________ of its cell.

4. This pigment, called ____________________, reacts with light and enables the cell to make __________, an energy molecule.

Viruses (Click Viruses on the left-hand menu.)

What They Are

1. A virus is basically a tiny bundle of _________________ material - either DNA or _____ - carried in a shell called the viral coat, or ______________, which is made up of bits of protein called _______________.

2. Some viruses have an addition layer around this coat called an _____________.

3. Viruses can’t metabolize ______________, produce and excrete wastes, move around on their own, or even ______________ unless they are inside other organisms. They aren’t even _____________.

4. Viruses have been the culprits in many human _____________, including smallpox, flu, _________, certain types of cancer, and the ever-present ___________________.

Single-Minded Mission

5. Viruses exist for one purpose only: to _______________________.

6. To do that, they have to take over the _______________ machinery of suitable host cells.

7. Upon landing on an appropriate _________ cell, a virus gets its genetic material inside

the cell either by tricking the host cell to pull it inside, like it would a ________________

molecule, or by fusing its viral coat with the host cell wall or membrane and releasing its

__________ inside.

8. If the virus is a ________ virus, its genetic material then inserts itself into the host cell’s

DNA. If the virus is an ________ virus, it must first turn its RNA into _________ using

the host cell’s machinery before inserting into the host cell.

9. The viral _________ are then copied many, many times, using the machinery the host cell would normally use to _____________ its own DNA.

10. The virus uses the host cell’s enzymes to build new viral capsids and other viral ______________.

What They Look Like (Click What They Look Like on the left-hand menu.)

1. Viruses are the ______________ and tiniest of microbes; they can be as much as ____________ times smaller than bacteria.

2. There are _____________ of different viruses that come in a variety of shapes. Many are _________________ or multi-sided.

3. Other viruses are shaped like spiky ovals or ___________ with rounded corners.

4. Some are like skinny ____________ while others look like bits of looping ___________.

5. Some are more complex and shaped like little lunar ____________________.

Where They’re Found (Click Where They’re Found on the left-hand menu.)

1. Viruses are found on or in just about every material and _________________ on Earth from soil to water to _______.

2. They’re basically found anywhere there are __________ to infect.

3. Viruses have _________________ to infect every form of life, from animal to plant and from fungi to ______________.

4. However, viruses tend to be somewhat picky about what type of cells they ___________.

5. Plant viruses are not equipped to infect _____________ cells, for example, though a certain plant virus could infect a number of related _____________.

6. Sometimes, a virus may infect one creature and do no harm, but cause havoc when it gets into a different but closely _______________________ creature.

7. True parasites, viruses are basically little more than molecular ______________ moving genetic information from one cell to another.

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Name: __________________________________ Date __________________

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