Imaginary Magnitude Page 3
Less than eighty years ago man hit upon a more powerful counterattack, bringing down upon bacteria an army of his own—selective synthetic poisons, striking their life processes. In this extremely short period he has produced over 48,000 chemical antibacterial weapons, synthesized with the purpose of striking at the most sensitive sore points of their metabolism, growth, and reproduction. He did this in the belief that he would presently wipe germs off the face of the earth, but he was soon amazed to find that, while checking the expansion of microbes—called epidemics—he had not liquidated a single disease. Bacteria proved to be a better equipped opponent than the creators of selective chemotherapy had imagined. No matter what new concoctions from the retort man uses, bacteria, by laying down hecatombs in this (so it would seem) unequal struggle, soon adapt the poisons to themselves or themselves to the poisons, and develop resistance.
Science does not know exactly how they do this, and what it does know seems highly unlikely. Bacteria surely have no v theoretical knowledge in the fields of chemistry or immunology. They are unable to conduct either test experiments or strategic deliberations; they are in no position to know what man is going to direct against them tomorrow. But even with these military disadvantages, somehow they manage. The more knowledge and skill medicine acquires, the less hope it places in clearing the earth of germs. To be sure, the hardy life of bacteria is the result of their mutability. However, no matter what tactics bacteria resort to in need, it is certain that they act unconsciously, like microscopic chemical aggregates. New tribes owe their resistance only to mutations of inheritance, and these mutations are fundamentally fortuitous. Were man involved, the picture would be more or less as follows: an unknown enemy, using stores of knowledge unknown to us, prepares deadly agents unknown to us and flings an enormous amout of them at people, while we, dying by the thousands, decide, in a desperate search for an antidote, that our best means of defense is to pull out of a hat pages torn from a chemical encyclopedia. Perhaps we shall find on one of these pages a formula for a life-saving drug. It is to be supposed, however, that a race trying to repel a mortal threat by this course of action would perish to a man before such a lottery-type method could succeed.
Yet the above method somehow works, when bacteria apply it. There can be absolutely no question of their hereditary gene code having providently inscribed in it every possible structure of pernicious chemical substance which can be synthesized. There are more of these unions than stars and atoms in the universe. Besides, the extremely poor apparatus of bacterial heredity could not even contain the information about the 48,000 drugs which man has used up to now in his struggle with the germs. So one thing is irrefutable: the chemical knowledge of bacteria, though purely "practical," vi continues to surpass the lofty theoretical knowledge of man.
Since this is so, and since bacteria have such versatility, why can't this be used for completely new purposes? If we look at the question objectively, it is clear that writing a few words in English is a much simpler problem than preparing countless defense tactics against countless types of poisons and venoms. Indeed, behind these poisons stands the colossus of modern science—libraries, laboratories, sages, and their computers—yet this might is still insufficient against the invisible "plantlets"! So the only catch is how to compel bacteria to study English, and how to make a command of the language a precondition of survival. One must create a situation with two, and only two, ways out: either learn how to write, or perish.
R. Gulliver states that in principle a golden-hued staphylococcus or a colon bacillus (Escherichia coli) could be taught writing as we normally use it, though the road to such knowledge is extremely arduous and bristling with obstacles. It would be much simpler to teach bacteria how to use the Morse alphabet, which is composed of dots and dashes—all the more so, since the dots are already there. After all, each colony is simply a dot. Four dots stuck together on an axis produce a dash. What could be simpler?
Such were R. Gulliver's inspiration and assumptions— crazy enough to provoke every specialist at this point to toss it aside. But we who are not specialists may continue reading. R. Gulliver decided to make the placing of short dashes on the agar a condition of survival. The difficulty (as he tells us in Chapter 2) is that there can be absolutely no instruction in the usual sense of the word—neither as it applies to people, nor even to animals, who can acquire conditional reflexes. Here the pupil has no nervous system, no limbs, eyes, ears, or sense of touch—nothing except an uncommon proficiency in chemical changes. These are its life process, and that's about it. Therefore this process must be harnessed to the vii study of calligraphy—the process, and not the bacteria, for after all we are not talking about individuals or specimens: it is the genetic code itself which must be instructed, so we have to reach the code, and not individual bacteria!
Bacteria do not behave intelligently, whereas the code, their helmsman, renders them capable of adaptation to totally new situations, even to those which they encounter for the first time in millions of years of vegetation. Only if we prepare conditions so well chosen that the sole available tactic of survival is articulate writing shall we see whether the code is up to the task. But the foregoing reflection transfers the whole burden of the problem to the experimenter, for it is he who must create these unusual conditions of bacterial existence—unusual because never before encountered in Evolution!
The description of experiments which occupies later chapters of Eruntics is unbelievably boring by virtue of its pedantry, prolixity, and continued interlarding of the text with photograms, tables, and graphs which make it difficult to digest. We shall take those 260 pages of Eruntics and summarize them briefly. The beginning was simple. On the agar lies a single colony of colon bacilli (E. coli) four times smaller than the letter o. The behavior of this grayish spot is observed from above by an optic head connected to a computer. The colony ordinarily expands in all directions centrifugally; but in the experiment, expansion is possible only along a simple axis, for any movement beyond it switches on a laser projector that kills the "misbehaving" bacteria with ultra-violet rays. We have here a situation similar to the one described initially, when writing appeared on the agar, for the bacteria were unable to develop where the agar was moistened with antibiotic. The only difference now is that they are able to live solely within the limits of a dash (previously they viii could live only outside it). The author repeated this experiment 45,000 times, using two thousand petri dishes simultaneously and the same number of sensing devices connected to a parallel computer. He had considerable expenses but did not have to give up too much of his time, as a single generation of bacteria lives only some ten to twelve minutes. On two of the two thousand dishes there was enough mutation to produce a new strain of colon bacillus (E. coli orthogenes) no longer capable of developing otherwise than in dashes; this new type covered the agar with the following filament:
Growth along a single axis then became the inherited property of the mutated bacteria. By breeding this strain, R. Gulliver obtained a further thousand dishes with colonies, and thus a practice range for the next stage in bacterial orthography. With strains that bred in alternating dots and dashes (. — . — . — . — . —), he ultimately reached the limits of this phase of instruction. The bacteria behaved in accordance with the imposed condition, though naturally they produced no writing, only superficial elements of it deprived of any meaning. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 explain how the author took the next step, or rather how he forced E. coli to do so.
He deliberated as follows: bacteria have to be put into a position where they behave in a certain specific manner, and this behavior, which at their level of vegetation is purely chemical, will take the form of signals. In the course of four million experiments R. Gulliver macerated, dried to dust, roasted, thawed, cut, squeezed, and catalytically paralyzed billions of bacteria, until he finally obtained a strain of E. coli which reacted to mortal danger by arranging its colonies into these dots:............
The le
tter s (three dots signify s in the Morse alphabet) symbolized stress. Of course the bacteria still understood nothing, but they were able to save themselves only by react- ix ing through the foregoing arrangement of their colonies, for then and only then did the sensing device connected to the computer remove the menacing agent (e.g., a powerful poison appearing in the agar, ultra-violet rays shining on the agar, etc.). Bacteria which did not arrange themselves into three-dot groups had to perish—every last one; on the agar (and scientific) battlefield, only those remained which, thanks to mutations, had acquired that chemical skill. The bacteria understood nothing yet they signaled their condition —"mortal danger"—thanks to which the three dots indeed became a sign defining the situation.
R. Gulliver already saw that he could breed a strain which could give SOS signals, though he considered this an altogether superfluous step. He took a different course, teaching the bacteria how to differentiate signals according to the characteristic features of each threat. Thus, for example, the strains E. coli loquativa 67 and E. coli philographica 213 could eliminate free oxygen, which is lethal to them, from their environment solely by giving the signal: ...-----------
(s o, or "stress produced by oxygen").
The author is euphemistic when he says that obtaining strains that could signal their needs proved "rather troublesome." Breeding E. coli numerativa which was able to indicate what concentration of hydrogen ions (pH) suited it, cost him two years, while Proteus calculans began to perform elementary arithmetical work after a further three years of experiments. It got as far as two and two makes four.
In the next stage R. Gulliver broadened the base of his experiments, teaching Morse to streptococci and gonococci, though these germs proved fairly dull-witted. He then went back to the colon bacillus. Tribe 201 was distinguished by its mutational adaptability: it produced longer and longer statements, both descriptions and demands, indicating what troubled the bacteria as well as what they wished by way of nutriment. Continuing to preserve only the most efficiently mutating strains, after eleven years he obtained the strain E. coli eloquentissima, the first to begin to write spontaneously and not merely when threatened. He says the happiest day of his life occurred when E. coli eloquentissima reacted to the light being switched on in the laboratory with the words "good morning," articulated by a growth of the agar colonies in Morse code.
The first to master Basic English syntax was Proteus orator mirabilis 64; on the other hand, E. coli eloquentissima continued to make grammatical errors even after 21,000 generations. But the moment the genetic code of those bacteria assimilated the rules of grammar, signaling in Morse became one of its characteristic vital functions: this led to the writing of microbe-transmitted news. At first it was not especially interesting. R. Gulliver wanted to give the bacteria some leading questions, but the establishment of two-way communication proved impossible. The cause of the fiasco he explains as follows: it is not that the bacteria articulate, but that the genetic code articulates through them, and this code does not inherit traits individually acquired by particular individuals. The code expresses itself, but while producing statements it is unable to receive any. That is inherited behavior, inasmuch as it is consolidated in the struggle for existence; the messages emitted by the genetic code, grouping the coli colonies in Morse signs, are reasonable but at the same time silly, which is best illustrated by a long-familiar method of bacterial reaction: in producing penicillinase to protect themselves from the effect of penicillin, they are behaving reasonably, but at the same time unconsciously. So R. Gulliver's communicative strains did not cease to be "ordinary bacteria," and the merit of the experimenter was the creation of conditions that implanted eloquence in the heredity of mutated strains.
So bacteria speak, though it is impossible to speak to them. This limitation is less disastrous than one might think, since precisely because of it there appeared, in time, that linguistic property of germs which lay at the basis of eruntics.
R. Gulliver had not expected it at all; he discovered it by accident, in the course of new experiments aimed at breeding E. coli poetica. The short verses composed by the colon bacillus were extremely banal and unsuitable for recitation, since—for obvious reasons—bacteria know nothing about English phonetics. Hence they could master the meter of verse, but not the rules of rhyming; bacterial poetry produced nothing beyond a couplet of the type "Agar agar is my love as were* stated above." As sometimes happens, luck rushed to Gulliver's aid. He varied their nutriment, searching for means of inspiring the bacteria to greater eloquence, and filling their bed with preparations whose chemical composition (nota bene) he has kept secret. Lengthy verbiage immediately ensued. Finally on November 27, after a new mutation, E. coli loquativa began to issue stress signals, though nothing indicated that there were any noxious compounds in the agar. However, the following day, twenty-nine hours after the alarm, some plaster above the laboratory table fell from the ceiling and crushed all the petri dishes on the table. The author first took this strange event to be a coincidence, but just to be sure he conducted a control experiment which proved that premonitions were a characteristic of those bacteria. By now the first new tribe—Gulliveria coli prophetica—was predicting the future fairly well, that is to say, it was endeavoring to adapt to any unfavorable changes that were to threaten it during the next twenty-four hours. xii The author believed that he discovered nothing absolutely new, but merely picked up by accident the trail of a primeval mechanism characteristic of the heredity of microbes, which enables them to parry effectively the bactericidal techniques of medicine. Yet as long as bacteria remained mute, we had no inkling that such a mechanism might even exist.
The author's supreme achievement was the breeding of Gulliveria coli prophetissima and Proteus delphicus recte mirabilis. These strains predict the future, and not only within the range of occurrences affecting their own vegetation. R. Gulliver believes that the mechanism of this phenomenon is of a purely physical nature. Bacteria assemble as colonies in dots and dashes, since this procedure is already a normal property of their proliferation characteristics; they are not a "Cassandra bacillus" or "Proteus prophet" making utterances concerning future events. They are merely constellations of physical occurrences in a form still so embryonic and minute that we are unable to detect them by any means, and which have acquired an influence on the metabolism—and therefore the chemism—of those mutated strains. The biochemical action of Gulliveria coli prophetissima behaves then as a transmitter linking various space-time intervals. Bacteria are a hypersensitive receiver of certain likelihoods, and nothing more. Bacterial futurology has admittedly become a reality, though it is fundamentally unpredictable in its consequences, since the future-tracking behavior of bacteria cannot be controlled.
Sometimes Proteus mirabilis depicts numerical sequences in Morse code, and it is very difficult to determine what they refer to. Once it predicted the laboratory electricity meter reading a half year in advance. Once it forecast how many kittens the neighbor's cat would have. Bacteria are obviously completely indifferent, when it comes to predictions; they stand in the same relation to their Morse transmissions as a radio receiver to its signals. One can at least see why they xiii predict incidents relevant to their vegetation; on the other hand, their sensitivity to other categories of events remains an enigma. They might have picked up the cracking of the ceiling plaster owing to changes in the electrostatic charges in the atmosphere of the laboratory, or possibly as a result of the intervention of other physical phenomena. But the author does not know why they also transmit news concerning, for example, the world after the year 2050.
His next task was to distinguish between bacterial pseudology—irresponsible verbiage—and solid predictions, and he accomplished this in a manner as ingenious as it was simple, by setting up "parallel prognostic batteries," called bacterial eruntors. A battery is composed of at least sixty prophetic strains of coli and Proteus. If each of them says something different, the signaling has to be acknowl
edged as worthless. If, however, the statements are in accord, prognoses can be made. Placed in separate thermostats and petri dishes, they articulate in Morse the same or very similar texts. In the course of two years the author collected an anthology of bacterial futurology, and with the presentation of them he has crowned his work.
He obtained his best results thanks to strains of G. coli bibliographica and telecognitiva. These are produced by enzymes such as futurase plusquamperfectiva and excitine futurognostica. Through the action of these enzymes predictive faculties can be acquired even by such coli strains as E. poetica, which were capable of nothing beyond the composition of feeble verse. Nevertheless, in their predictive behavior bacteria are fairly limited. In the first place, they predict no events directly, but only as if transmitting the contents of a publication dealing with those events. In the second place, they are incapable of prolonged concentration: their top efficiency extended to barely fifteen sheets of types-xiv cript. In the third place, all the texts by bacterial authors refer to the period betwen 2003 and 2089.
While fully acknowledging that these phenomena can be explained in various ways, R. Gulliver plumps for his own hypothesis. Fifty years from now a municipal library is to arise on the site of his present holdings. The bacterial code is to be introduced indiscriminately into the library, to be used for selecting random volumes from the shelves. There are no volumes at the moment, to be sure, nor even a library, though in his desire to strengthen the credibility of bacterial predictions, R. Gulliver has already drawn up his will, by the terms of which the town council is to convert his homestead into a library. It cannot be said that he acted at the instigation of his microbes, but rather the reverse: it was they who foresaw the contents of his will before it had been drawn up.