Editorial

What is the difference between science and life? Step away from that microscope for a second and I'll tell you.

As many of you are aware, a startling discovery was made in late '92 by a team of marine microbiologists. They discovered, in the belly of a species of fish indigenous to the Great Barrier Reef, a new type of bacteria — one ten times larger than any previously known, so large (in the neighbourhood of .4 or .5 millimeters) that we cannot even refer to it as a micro-organism.

We have believed for well over eighty years that bacterium have definite size restraints dictated by their structural simplicity. Presented with the fact of this monstrous new species, we are forced to consider what we know as possibly false. It seems, for instance, that we can no longer believe that internal protein transportation occurs merely by diffusion — more complex bio-chemical pathways now seem likely, and we must work to articulate them.

A stream of words leaves our mouths and cuts a path through the dumb world. Behind us monsters and other anomalies slowly come into being. They are defined by our words.  They are the somewhat disagreeable agents of speech- proliferation.

But what about the fish? It has iridescent blue markings and all along has been fairly popular with tropical fish enthusiasts.