INTERESTING TIMES

The lady featured in this article was working as an addictions counselor for $20/hour with just a bachelor's degree, and landed a client who really was dangerous.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/08/10/ST2008081000071.html

One kind of food poisoning and anthrax are caused by bacterium in the genus Bacillus. They are gram positive rods that make spores and have exotoxins. In lecture there was mention of its marshmallowy capsule containing d-glutamate and that being unusual. The capsule and the exotoxin are plasmid encoded, and this organism is also unique in that it has two plamids.

Bacilli are facultative aerobes--meaning they use oxygen as the final electron acceptor in their electron transport chain, and have catalase and superoxide dismutase. But they can grow in the absence of oxygen by fermenting for energy. The two medically important species of Baccilus are cereus and anthrasis.

B. cereus is ubiquitous in the soil and commonly found in low levels in raw, dried and processed foods. It takes four or more hours in food held at the wrong temperature (warm) to grow enough to make you sick. Beware of steam trays! The food poisoning it causes is similar to that caused by Staphylococcus aureus---watery nonbloody diarrhea 6-18 hours after ingesting the poison, or a faster boot out the top end, or both. Bacillus cereus likes growing in cooked white rice.
( How are bacteria unlike eukaryotes? Answer behind cut: )