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Published online 8 May 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.360
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Bacteria 'can learn'
Colonies evolve to anticipate changes in their surroundings.
The simple life of bacteria is a little less simple than you might have thought. New research shows that colonies of Escherichia coli can demonstrate a form of learning.
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Does it happen to all the microbials or just in a limited group? Or it might be explained in another way.
Could it be explain as a stress response? There are several research where one stress condition gives protection against other condition.
Is this observation the result of epigenetic changes due to heat tolerance than a learning process? Could it be revert this cell conditions to initial state?
The solubility of oxygen in water decreased with the increase of temperature. At 1 atm and 20º C the solubility of oxygen is 8.87 mg/l. At 35ºC is 6.99 mg/l. It's a physical phenomen.
Geez! it seems that my previous comment has been truncated by web gizmos. The decreasing in oxygen it's a physical phenomena, so a living being with the property of anticipate that behavoir shoul be no rare. But the team has also made the opposite experiment. When temperature increase, they increased oxygen. An the bacterial population is adapted to the new situation after less than 100 generations. It seems that the "learning" could be explained by selection.
It is the same for Fungi? If yes any spp in particular?