Seeing Bacteria

By Christina Agapakis | December 14, 2012 |

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I got a really fun early Christmas gift yesterday, Moyasimon 1: Tales of Agriculture, a manga series about a boy who can see microbes. His skills lead to some exciting fermentation-related adventures at his agriculture college. I learned a lot about miso, sake, and meats that ferment underground!

The microbes are super cute, and it also has one of the best anthropomorphized earthworms I’ve ever seen:

I of course also loved the chapter on beneficial microbes and gut flora:

And toe fungus!

While there’s a lot of silliness that happens, the characters are very serious about microbes:

There’s even a live action adaptation with adorable CGI microbes that cheer “Let’s brew!” that you can watch on YouTube!

About the Author: Christina Agapakis is a biological designer who blogs about biology, engineering, engineering biology, and biologically inspired engineering. Follow on Twitter @thisischristina.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Tags: bacteria, fermentation, fun, fungus

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