Hi
dudes. My name is Bacillus subtilis. It's pretty cool to
be me. Nothing bothers the B. sub when he knows he can
turn into a tough endospore if things start to look a bit dodgy.
My spores are super-hardy, meaning I can survive extreme temperatures,
acid, salt or starvation for really long times. I just hang about
and wait out whatever stress is getting me down.
When things get a bit dull in my soil home, I like to head off to the science laboratories where the humans like to use me as a model organism. Being so amenable to genetic manipulation has its uses. But my fave past time has to be converting explosives and radioactive waste into harmless compounds. The other soil bacteria love a daredevil.
And did you know that I was involved in testing the vulnerability of the New York subway to a biological attack? Special Ops released me on the tube to find out just how many people would be killed in the event of a bio-warfare attack. Turned out that the entire system could be contaminated by releasing bacteria in just one train. Bummer.
