∞ generated and posted on 2016.02.05 ∞
Decline in culture viability during a standard bacterial growth curve.
From :
Underlying the usually observed death phase was a dynamic world of dying and growing bacteria. There were constant population takeovers such that pre-existing fitter bacterial mutants grew as the original population met its demise. Evolutionary cheating we would call it later on [reference], but first we thought of this as a mutant’s expression of a 'growth advantage in stationary phase', or GASP, and we knew the bacteria were GASPing for life in stationary phase [reference]." A reprint of this wonderful article can be found here.