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Scientists now know that individual traits may, in fact, serve as drivers to boost the robustness and resistance of microbial populations, says Michael Konopka, a biochemical engineer at the University of Washington in Seattle. In the October 2010 issue of Nature Chemical Biology, he and coauthor Mary Lidstrom outlined how some members of a microbial colony will stop growing in times of stress, moving into a dormant state that allows them to ride out the bad conditions while their neighbors perish.
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