Boinkie's Blog   Sunday, March 26, 2006  The Miracle Microbe:
Serratia marcescens  Some Catholic bloggers were commenting on
the Eucharistic host that turned to flesh/blood.  As expected,
it was a combination of "mycelia" and bacteria.  Mycelia means
yeast. Most women have had yeast infection...usually after a
bout of antibiotics. When babies get it in their mouth, it is
called thrush. If you look (and most don't) the yeast infection
looks like a layer of cottage cheese...  But in this case, the
thick fleshy/cheesy layer was not pure white, like with yeast,
nor the expected black from fungi. It was red.  Well, docs know
about this germ: Serratia marcescens. It's a germ that is red,
and was originally found when some poleta turned into flesh in
Italy...  Now, Serratia is a pretty benign bug, and is an
unusual color that makes it easy to docs use it to track how
germs spread...  This notorious experiment, where the Army
released it into the air off SanFrancisco in 1950, was done to
track how an enemy could spre