How a spoonful of curd turns a bowl of milk into more curd, why dough rises and why Swiss cheese has holes. You meet the yeast behind wine, beer and spirits, the microbes that make acids and enzymes, the story of penicillin, and two medicines made by fungi.
3 lessons, about 1 h 20 min3 simulations10 problems3 practice questionsPython in every lesson
Created by StemPy LabA spoonful of curd turns a bowl of milk into curd, dough rises, idli batter puffs up and Swiss cheese gets its holes. In each case microbes do the work. Lactic acid bacteria make the curd, yeast and bacteria fill the dough with gas, and particular microbes ripen the cheese.
Yeast turns the sugar of juices and malted cereals into ethanol. Wine and beer are made without distillation, and whisky, brandy and rum are made by distilling the fermented broth. Other microbes make acids for industry: citric, acetic, butyric and lactic acid.
An antibiotic is a chemical made by a microbe that kills or slows the growth of other microbes. Penicillin was the first one, found by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Microbes also make enzymes such as lipases, pectinases, proteases and streptokinase, and the bioactive molecules cyclosporin A and the statins.
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