microscopic friends

won the 1998 award for 'organism most resistant to radiation' which is a category i think i have the potential to win if i keep microdosing myself with the americium in my smoke alarms

the little holes in the bacteria in this picture that look like the eye of a needle are endospores, which are these virtually indestructible little proteinacious shells that some bacteria fold themselves into when they're starved or threatened. that's one of the reasons why anthrax is so dangerous - once you get it somewhere, extensive, harsh, and destructive decontamination methods are necessary to get rid of it. clostridium is a contaminator of some canned foods and its very deadly paralytic toxin is the main component of botox.