Artificial sweeteners are changing your gut microbiota!

Recent studies have shown that artificial sweeteners could actually hasten the development of glucose intolerance and metabolic disease. One of the experiments that was done was that mice were given water laced with the three most commonly used artificial sweeteners. The result was that the mice developed glucose intolerance, but when they were given antibiotics to get rid of most of their gut microbes, they could digest sugars normally again. The next thing they did was transfer some of the microbiota from the mice that had consumed artificial sweetener into sterile mice, and it produced the same effects. Upon closer examination of the mice's gut microbiota, it was apparent that there was a great change in bacterial populations. The sweeteners also caused the bacteria to secrete a substance that cause a inflammatory response similar to that of glucose intolerance. Because the sweetener affects the body's ability to process sugar, it is believed to contribute to diabetes. These findings are important because of the fact that the use of artificial sweeteners is so wide spread that it is going to be hard to warn people of th risks. The article wasn't specific as to what kinds of foods are sweetened artificially but I know that a common one is diet sodas. Now I for one don't drink diet sodas, but this article makes me wonder what other foods that could be putting me at risk for developing glucose intolerance.

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250-million-year-old bacteria?!

My article was called "Rock of Ages", and it talked about a microbe that was found trapped in some fluid in a 250-million-year-old formation of salt in New Mexico! This microbe was given the name Bacillus, and was then changed to. Virgibacillus species 2-9-3. There was a lot of skepticism because biological chemists doubted that nuclei acids could last that long, an even if it had managed to hibernate as a spore, it's DNA should've broken down in 250 million years from the barrage of earths natural radiation over the extended period of time. It was argued that more recent fluid had found it's way into the rock, and that it's DNA sequence was far too similar to that of a modern strain. So eventually a team from Nature magazine joined a team from Geology to test the theory that the fluid is newer than the surrounding rock. So they took the temperature of the same part of rock the original sample came from and the temperature ranges from 63-99 degrees Fahrenheit, a distribution that suggests seasonal climate change. They also did a test to measure the ions in the fluid to compare it to the seawater changes over time, and the sample matched the ions of the Permian period. The last criticism is that of the bacteria DNA being the same as that of a strain from the Dead Sea, but a member of the team challenged the models that predict that these strains came about tens of thousands instead of millions of years ago.
As for questions I have, one is that if there's another test that would prove the validity of Virgibacillus' age. I also wonder if, like the article says, if the strain found in the Dead Sea really didn't come about millions of years ago. This article was really interesting to me specifically because I'm surprised that there is no set method for determining the age of microbes.