Download Microbe Scavenger Hunt 1

Name: __________________________________
Date __________________
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
http://archives.microbeworld.org/microbes/.
Go to my webpage at www.cwcboe.org > 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?
1. Microbes are ___________________ organisms so tiny that ________________ can fit
into the eye of a needle.
2. Microbe fossils date back more than ______________________ to a time when the earth
was covered with oceans.
3. Without microbes, we couldn’t _______ or __________.
4. Microbes are in the _______ we breathe, the ____________ we walk on, the
______________ we eat – they’re even inside ______!
5. We couldn’t _____________ food without them – animals couldn’t, either.
6. 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 _______________________.
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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.
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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 __________________.
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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
______________.
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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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