Micro-Buddies Tell the Story of Science





Biology is a riveting drama. Your lactose intolerance is a civilization-size interaction between catastrophic waves of foreign dairy and your gut bacteria. Your sinus infection is every bit the war it feels like. But what about the hordes of friendly microbes desperately battling the creeping toxicity of that grease-infused McBigThing you unthinkingly scarfed for lunch? Who sings the songs of their bravery? Would we appreciate them more if someone did? Sally Kuzniewski, microbiology researcher and educator, has dedicated herself to this task.

We Need Science Stories





Like any teacher, Kuzniewski has noticed an odd dynamic in the modern student. On one hand, like any group of media-savvy young people, her classes were wildly interested in viruses that literally drive people insane, the weight-defeating power of yogurt, and, of course, skin-eating bacteria. On the other hand, they had no clue how any of those actually worked. Kuzniewski noted their lack, not just of knowledge, but of understanding about the basics of how the microbial world worked. “Where are skin-eating bacteria found and what makes them be able to ‘eat’ skin? How can yogurt bacteria help you ‘lose’ weight?” The students didn’t know, and furthermore, the answers would probably be jargony and talk about stuff that didn’t make much sense in the context of average daily life. Much more fun to just read … Harry Potter. Huh.

The popularity of Harry Potter, rife with hippogriffs and Veritaserums, was a signal to Kuzniewski that jargon wasn’t actually a problem for her students. “They knew the ins and the outs of that world, all the terminologies,” she explains. If ordinary Muggles could play Quidditch in Diagon Alley without becoming terminally confused, then why couldn’t ordinary researchers ride the flagellum of a bacterium in a test tube?

Micro-Buddies

Thus were born the Micro-Buddies. Kuzniewski describes them as “science blended with science-fiction.” In shape, behavior, and size, these itty-bitty heroes resemble your average microscopic flora and fauna. However, unlike most microbes, they also have thrilling test-tube adventures with Karen, a microbial researcher who discovers how to shrink herself down to bacterial size. These bugs talk, interact, and generally behave like the characters in any other novel. Except, of course, it’s educational. “It was important for me to explain their behavior in a science-fiction manner. The world of the Micro-Buddies is just like the world of any living thing: there is mutualistic behavior and there is also competition.”

Like many other educators, Kuzniewski saw her students become more engaged when she turned microbiology into a story. Now, she hopes that the Micro-Buddies will help educate the general public. It’s certainly a thought for an age when baseline ignorance of microscopic life spawns a new ridiculous media frenzy every other week. “Something like the Ebola epidemic might have been better managed and with less public hysteria if people knew the basics of microbiology.” If it takes a talking bacterium named Buddy to pull it off, then so be it.

Reach Out to the Public

Kuzniewski urges other scientists to be confident in their storytelling ambitions, even when the going gets tough. The world needs more science fables, more allegories, more engaging, nonthreatening overtures from the research community to the public. The Micro-Buddies will keep up the cause (though details for upcoming books are firmly under wraps,) but perhaps other researchers in optics, physics, psychology, and chemistry could take a page from their book. If all the thirty-year-olds who can tell you how to make a Polyjuice Potion also knew that the same bacterium can be beneficial and malign under different circumstances, then the world might be a better place. Isn’t that the point of having science in the first place?



Anna Call is a freelance writer who blogs about science for Foreword Reviews. You can follow her on Twitter @evil_librarian

Anna Call

January 15, 2015