Biology: Antibiotic Resistance and Natural Selection

• Strep throat is caused by bacteria and is typically treated with antibiotics designed to destroy prokaryote cells.
• Antibiotic resistance is a concern as bacteria can develop resistance over time through natural selection.
• Natural selection can be illustrated with an example of frogs in different colors on logs, where the environment favors darker frogs for survival.
• Fitness in biology is determined by the number of offspring an organism has, not how long it lives.
• Variation and mutations in organisms are random and can be positive, negative, or have no effect on fitness.
• Bacteria also experience variation, and when antibiotics are used, resistant bacteria with advantageous traits survive and reproduce, passing on their resistance genes.
• Hospitals face challenges with antibiotic resistance, and good hygiene practices are crucial to prevent the spread of resistant bacterial infections.
• To combat antibiotic resistance, scientists are developing new antibiotics, and it is important to only take antibiotics for bacterial infections and not for viruses.

This quiz covers topics such as antibiotic resistance, natural selection, fitness in biology, and the implications of antibiotic use on bacterial populations. It also discusses the challenges hospitals face with antibiotic-resistant infections and the importance of developing new antibiotics cautiously.