Deck 1: Microbial Life: Origin and Discovery

Question 1

How did European invaders to North America kill much of the native population?

A) tuberculosis
B) leprosy
C) smallpox
D) HIV
E) bubonic plague

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Which of these groups are considered to be microbes but NOT considered to be cells?

A) viruses
B) bacteria
C) archaea
D) protists
E) filamentous fungi

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which technique was developed to distinguish bacteria from human cells?

A) Gram stain
B) electron microscopy
C) X-ray diffraction
D) DNA sequencing
E) polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

Answer 3

A

Question 4

All of the following have been found in mummies and tomb art EXCEPT:

A) tuberculosis
B) polio
C) leprosy
D) smallpox
E) AIDS

Question 5

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) A genome is the total genetic information contained in an organism's chromosomal DNA.
B) If a microbe's genome includes genes for nitrogenase, that microbe probably can fix nitrogen.
C) By comparing DNA sequences of different organisms, we can figure out how closely related they are.
D) Fred Sanger developed the first applicable DNA sequencing method.
E) Fred Sanger completed the sequences of Haemophilus influenzae.

Question 6

Nightingale:

A) is better known as the founder of professional nursing
B) was the first to use disinfectant to demonstrate the significance of aseptic technique
C) developed the pie chart of mortality data during the Crimean War
D) performed the first controlled experiment on the chemical conversion of matter, known today as chemotherapy
E) all of the above

Question 7

The first cellular genomes to be sequenced were those of:

A) humans
B) bacteria
C) viruses
D) prions
E) fungi

Question 8

A microbe is commonly defined as:

A) a virus that requires a microscope to be seen
B) a bacterium that requires a microscope to be seen
C) a single-cellular prokaryote that requires a microscope to be seen
D) a multicellular eukaryote that requires a microscope to be seen
E) a living organism that requires a microscope to be seen

Question 9

The first person to visualize individual microbes was:

A) Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
B) Robert Hooke
C) Louis Pasteur
D) Lady Montagu
E) Edward Jenner

Question 10

Early metabolism may have been catalyzed by:

A) DNA
B) RNA
C) protein
D) amino acids
E) carbohydrates

Question 11

How is most sterilization performed for the controlled study of microbes?

A) boiling
B) pasteurization
C) filter sterilization
D) autoclaving
E) irradiation

Question 12

The environment of early Earth may have contained all of the following EXCEPT:

A) ferrous iron
B) methane
C) ammonia
D) oxygen
E) hydrogen gas

Question 13

Which one of the following statements regarding microbial cells is NOT true?

A) Microbial cells acquire food, gain energy to build themselves, and respond to environmental change.
B) Most single-celled organisms require a microscope to render them visible, but some bacterial cells are large enough to be seen with naked eyes.
C) Microbes function as individual entities.
D) Many microbes form complex multicellular assemblages.
E) Viruses are not considered as microbial cells.

Question 14

Viruses are:

A) infectious agents that infect multi-cellular organisms
B) noncellular particles that take over the metabolism of a cell to generate more virus particles
C) pathogens that replicate in complex growth media
D) cellular particles that belong to the archaea domain
E) microbes that consist of lipid membrane enclosed genomes

Question 15

Which of the following diseases accounts for more than half of all human mortality?

A) cardiovascular disease
B) cancer
C) accidents
D) microbial disease
E) strokes

Question 16

Which microbes may resemble those of the earliest life forms?

A) archaea
B) photosynthetic algae
C) viruses
D) cyanobacteria
E) protists

Question 17

The development of the theory of the "RNA world" resulted from the discovery of:

A) archaea
B) prions
C) bacteria
D) ribozymes
E) endosymbionts

Question 18

Who developed the concept of medical statistics?

A) Francis Crick
B) Florence Nightingale
C) Edward Jenner
D) Louis Pasteur
E) Alexander Fleming

Question 19

Which century is known as the golden age of microbiology?

A) the seventeenth
B) the eighteenth
C) the nineteenth
D) the twentieth
E) the twenty-first

Question 20

Analysis of DNA sequences reveals:

A) the ancient convergence of two cell types, i.e., prokaryotes and eukaryotes
B) prokaryotes and eukaryotes evolved from a common ancestral cell
C) that bacteria share common ancestor with archaea, but not with eukarya
D) prokaryotes are cells with a nucleus
E) the genome of Haemophilus influenzae has about 2 billion base pairs

Question 21

Microbes can shape human history via:

A) lithotrophic activities
B) production of alcoholic beverages
C) diseases that they cause
D) production of cheese
E) all of the above

Question 22

Penicillin was first used to save the lives of many people during which war?

A) Civil War
B) Korean War
C) Vietnam War
D) World War I
E) World War II

Question 23

What is the basis for the modern smallpox vaccine?

A) chickenpox virus
B) cowpox virus
C) rabies virus
D) smallpox virus
E) anthrax

Question 24

Robert Koch's greatest accomplishment in the field of medical bacteriology was with:

A) Escherichia coli
B) Bacillus subtilis
C) Mycobacterium tuberculosis
D) rabies
E) smallpox

Question 25

The word "vaccination" is derived from the Latin word vacca, which means:

A) inject
B) smallpox
C) immunize
D) cow
E) pustule

Question 26

Which of the following organelles are thought to be of prokaryotic origin?

A) chloroplast
B) mitochondria
C) nucleus
D) chloroplast and mitochondria
E) chloroplast and nucleus

Question 27

In the three-domain model, the bacterial ancestor of chloroplasts derives from ancient:

A) fungi
B) cyanobacteria
C) proteobacteria
D) archaea
E) protists

Question 28

Organisms that live symbiotically inside a larger organism are known as:

A) organelles
B) cyanobacteria
C) mitochondria
D) endosymbionts
E) chloroplasts

Question 29

How did Sergei Winogradsky grow lithotrophs?

A) enrichment culture
B) organic media
C) pure culture
D) endosymbiosis
E) chain of infection

Question 30

Carl Woese's discovery replaced the classification scheme of five kingdoms with a scheme of three:

A) phyla
B) domains
C) classes
D) orders
E) genera

Question 31

Suppose Pasteur's swan-necked flasks containing boiled broth became cloudy 24 hours after boiling. Which choice could best explain the turbidity or cloudiness in the broth without supporting spontaneous generation?

A) Endospores in the broth survived boiling and grew after the broth cooled.
B) Contaminating organisms in the broth killed by boiling became alive again after the broth cooled.
C) Chemicals in the broth came together to form living organisms.
D) The broth allowed light to pass through it with less interference after boiling.
E) Solid material in the broth dissolved during boiling.

Question 32

The use of agar as the gelling agent in solid media was suggested by:

A) Robert Koch
B) Ignaz Semmelweis
C) Angelina Hesse
D) Louis Pasteur
E) Richard Petri

Question 33

Which group of microorganisms includes many that grow in extreme environments?

A) algae
B) bacteria
C) protists
D) archaea
E) fungi

Question 34

Which one of the following statements regarding viruses is FALSE?

A) They are too small to be seen by a light microscope.
B) They are "filterable agents" that can pass through porcelain filters having a pore size that blocks microbes.
C) Their genomes could be composed of DNA or RNA.
D) They are smaller than viroids and prions.
E) Viral particles, when pure enough, can be crystallized.

Question 35

In the three-domain model, the bacterial ancestor of mitochondria derives from ancient:

A) fungi
B) cyanobacteria
C) proteobacteria
D) archaea
E) protists

Question 36

It took the advent of the PCR to detect the presence of the causative agent for which disease?

A) anthrax
B) tuberculosis
C) AIDS
D) rabies
E) smallpox

Question 37

Which of the following can safely be ingested to fight bacterial infections?

A) antiseptics
B) disinfectants
C) phenol
D) chlorine
E) antibiotics

Question 38

All of the following are true about penicillin EXCEPT:

A) It was discovered by Alexander Fleming.
B) It was an accidental discovery.
C) It is produced by a bacterium.
D) It was the first antibiotic used by humans.
E) It was purified by Florey and Chain.

Question 39

You have isolated a bacterium that you believe to be the causative agent of a new disease in frogs. How would you test the third of Koch's postulates?

A) Determine the shape of the bacterial cells.
B) Inject the bacteria into a healthy frog.
C) Isolate the bacterium from a sick frog.
D) Show that the bacterium is not present in healthy frogs.
E) Grow a pure culture of the bacterium outside the frog.

Question 40

The genetic expression machinery of archaea is most similar to:

A) monera
B) prokaryotes
C) bacteria
D) eukaryotes
E) mitochondria

Question 41

How are microbes classified today?

A) comparative genomics
B) microscopy
C) X-ray diffraction
D) protein sequencing
E) 16S rRNA sequencing

Question 42

What is the most recent evidence suggesting that all life on Earth shares a common ancestry?

Question 43

Describe the effects of three microbial diseases that have significantly affected human populations throughout history.

Question 44

The X-ray diffraction studies by which of the following scientists concluded that DNA was a double helix?

A) James Watson
B) Rosalind Franklin
C) Francis Crick
D) Maurice Wilkins
E) Kary Mullis

Question 45

What is used to focus the beam of electrons in an electron microscope?

A) electromagnets
B) condenser lens
C) light rays
D) X-ray diffraction
E) glass

Question 46

Peter Mitchell and Jennifer Moyle discovered the __________ theory in the 1960s.

A) germplasm
B) evolution
C) chemiosmotic
D) DNA synthesis
E) polymerase chain reaction

Question 47

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek worked as a cloth draper, inspecting the quality of cloth. How did this lead to his interest in microscopy?

Question 48

What was the major complaint about Lazzaro Spallanzani's experiment to disprove spontaneous generation, and how did Louis Pasteur's swan-neck flasks overcome this?

Question 49

The Asilomar Conference was held to regulate and restrict the field of:

A) recombinant DNA
B) comparative genomics
C) DNA sequencing
D) DNA amplification
E) forensic microbiology

Question 50

Define attenuation and describe some mechanisms used to attenuate pathogens.

Question 51

The study of and cause of disease in humans, animals, and plants is called:

A) microbiology
B) phylogeny
C) genomics
D) epidemiology
E) forensics

Question 52

How do microbes help in the extraction of minerals?

Question 53

Which scientist first discovered the process of transformation?

A) Francis Crick
B) Robert Koch
C) Edward Jenner
D) Louis Pasteur
E) Frederick Griffith

Question 54

The analysis of microbial strains as evidence in criminal investigations is known as:

A) forensic microbiology
B) recombinant DNA
C) comparative genomics
D) classification
E) gene regulation

Question 55

What type of analysis was used to discover the overall structure of the DNA double helix?

A) microscopy
B) X-ray diffraction
C) polymerase chain reaction
D) DNA sequencing
E) recombinant DNA

Question 56

Taq polymerase formed the basis of a multibillion-dollar industry of:

A) comparative genomics
B) recombinant DNA
C) X-ray diffraction
D) DNA amplification
E) DNA sequencing

Question 57

How are prokaryotes and eukaryotes different?

Question 58

Describe the discoveries of Louis Pasteur while working with the French beer and wine manufacturers.

Question 59

Robert Koch's postulates have not been used to prove HIV as the causative agent of AIDS. Why not?

Question 60

Why did it take so long for humans to determine that microbes cause infectious diseases?

Question 61

Is it true that only culturable bacteria contribute to ecology? Explain your answer.

Question 62

What is the significance of the work of Ignaz Semmelweis and Joseph Lister?

Question 63

Briefly explain the endosymbiosis theory and the evidence that supports it.

Question 64

If you want to produce DNA polymerases like those used in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for amplification of DNA, from which natural environment would you try to isolate the producers?

Question 65

What were the contributions of Rosalind Franklin toward discovering the structure of DNA and why wasn't she one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize for this discovery?

Question 66

Define the term "endosymbiont" and give an example of an endosymbiotic relationship found in nature.

Question 67

Briefly describe how the ultracentrifuge is used to determine the sizes of cellular macromolecules.

Question 68

How would you use Robert Koch's postulates to prove that a specific organism causes a new disease in mice?

Question 69

Explain why the organisms that were studied by Sergei Winogradsky could not be grown on Robert Koch's plate media containing agar or gelatin.

Question 70

Give two reasons why microbes have been difficult to classify.