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Field Notes: Can We Beat Bacteria by Hacking Their Conversations? (Discover Magazine)

Here in her lab on the University of Wisconsin campus, chemist Helen Blackwell and her colleagues are eavesdropping on the chatter among single-celled organisms. For a long time they just listened. Now they actively interrupt the rumble of bacterial communication for a variety of practical purposes?such as augmenting the good works of friendly bacteria and thwarting the designs of dangerous ones.