A brief introduction to microbial life and 'omics strategies
Channel: Meren Lab
Date: 2020-07-10

Thank you very much for your interest for the Microbial 'Omics seminar series. If you wish to skip parts, this is the outline and timestamps of independent sections of the talk:

1:06 Logistics
9:18 A microbial planet
20:37 Understanding the diversity of life
48:01 Seeing microbes via sequences
1:09:12 A word of caution (by Roland Hatzenpichler)
1:38:45 Final words and thanks

Also, please note the following errors:

At 18:30, I am talking about the global carbon cycle, and mention that the remaining 4 gigatons of Carbon that is not taken up by terrestrial and marine life and that each year we add to the atmosphere. Then, I make it sound as if this fact is open to debate. I am sorry for not being clear, but I would like to clarify it here: The amount of carbon our human activities add to the atmosphere each year is not a topic of debate. The effect of the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is a well-understood phenomenon. The strong scientific consensus from over 1300 independent researchers is that these anthropogenic carbon emissions are the cause of climate change. There is no debate among scientists on this, and the data are clear. You can learn more on this from this accessible NASA resource: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/, from here if you are a microbiologist: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-019-0222-5. I thank James Riddell for pointing out this error, who also brought up a good point during our correspondence and suggested "we as microbiologists should care about this issue because microorganisms affect the rate of climate change and can be used as a tool to mitigate and adapt to our changing world".

At 29:30, I am talking about Robert Koch and his contributions to microbial cultivation. I pronounce his name quite wrong, and I apologize for that. The correct pronunciation can be found here: https://dict.leo.org/german-english/Koch (while it is not an excuse, I would like to share the fact that I had never heard his name pronounced by anyone, and failed to do my homework and embarrassed myself (Jessika Fuessel, a German scientist who exactly knew how Robert Koch should be pronounced, could not help me as I hadn't shared this part of the presentation with her; hence, I am the only person who should be blamed for this error)). I thank Christoph for bringing this to my attention.

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We thank Jessica Pan, who ensured the English subtitles for the video are accurate and readable. Please feel free to turn them on.


Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Meren
http://merenlab.org