Pretty Deadly

Bacteria spread over surfaces as biofilms – communities of microbes that sprawl silently, often invisible to the naked eye. Watching early biofilms under a microscope is the first step to learning how to stop them, perhaps after a brief pause to marvel at how beautiful they can be. Here, differently-coloured strains of bacteria grow in fixed colonies, producing a flower like pattern similar in size to a daisy. By preventing these strains of Vibrio cholerae (V. cholerae) from moving around, researchers see what happens when colonies compete for space, finding they meet at boundaries very similar to a Voronoi tessellation. This well-known mathematical pattern is often used in biology to predict growth in confined spaces. Developing mathematical models of V. cholerae bacteria – which can cause cholera – may suggest ways to disrupt these pretty, deadly patterns growing in the wild.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

Website

• Video from work by Melika Gorgi and colleagues
• Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), May 2026