--------- #1298 - Dominate Life, Is it Them or Us?
- Of all the life on Earth only plants, animals and fungi can be seen with the human eye. There are some 20 other varieties of life that we can not see. In fact, most of life around us is small, unicellular, and unfamiliar. Called microbial life it accounts of some 80% of all the life on Earth.
- Attachment - bacteria
- A flu virus is 4*10^-6 inches on a side and covers 16*10^-12 square inches. The human body has about 20 square feet of skin. That is 2,880 square inches of skin. The smallest virus is only 0.5*10^-12 square inches. So, if we were covered in viruses there could be 200 to 5,000 trillion viruses occupying every inch of our skin. Viruses are parasites that live on bacteria and other hosts , and , there are some 650,000 bacteria occupying every square inch of our skin that could be carrying these parasites.
- Viruses are not considered living organisms. Bacteria are living. There are at least 1,550 species of viruses and at least 5,000 species of bacteria. Compare that with:
------------------------ 26,900 species of algae
----------------------- 70,000 species of fungi
----------------------- 30,800 species of amoebas
------------------------- 5,000 species of bacteria
-------------------------- 1,550 species of viruses
------------------------- 1 species of homo sapiens
- So with a trillion bacteria grazing on our skin mostly feeding on the 10 billion of flakes of skin that we shed every day. That gray stuff that you see on the inside of your vacuum cleaner, along with the tasty oil and sweat that seep out of your pores is the food of bacteria. The waste left behind can be identified as “ body order”. There are an equal number of bacteria feeding on the insides of our bodies.
- The trillion bacteria inside our bodies live in our guts, our noses, our eyelashes, even our teeth enamel . In our guts alone there are over 400 different varieties of bacteria. Some digest sugar, some digest starches, some synthesize vitamins, some are warriors attacking other types of bacteria. The human body has some 10*10^15 cells. But, there are 100*10^15 bacterial cells. Human cells are outnumbered 10 to 1. So, who is the dominate life form here, them or us?
- How can so many bacteria exist on our bodies? For one thing it provides a constant warm, food source. For another thing bacteria can rapidly reproduce. A single bacterium can generate 280,000 billion ( 0.28 * 10^15 ) bacteria in a single day. In a single day a human cell can manage a single division. Most of the bacteria we get when we are born and pass through the birth canal.
- When bacteria are dividing with such rapid numbers several “ mutations” are occurring. A new bacterium endowed with some accidental advantage can take over. They could quickly develop a stain of bacteria that resist a particular antibiotic. All bacteria are swimming in a gene pool. Any adaptive advantage can spread through an entire colony of bacteria very quickly.
- Bacteria not only feed on us humans. There are varieties of bacteria that eat wood, eat the glue in wall paper, eat the metals in hardened paint. Bacteria have been found living and eating in sulfuric acid. They have been thriving in the waste tanks of nuclear reactors. The live in boiling mud pots, and in volcanic fissures at the bottom of the oceans. There was bacteria living in a sealed lens of a camera that was retrieved from the Moon after 2 years.
- Now, again, which is the dominate life form? Them or us?
- Science has recently learned that microbes are living deep inside the Earth, in the rocks 2,000 feet below the surface. Some of these bacteria are alive for centuries, dividing only once per century. With this new data estimates are that there is more life below the surface of Earth than on top of it.
- Astronomers are just beginning to study the possibilities of life on other planets, and other moons in our Solar System and now in some 1,200 newly discovered solar systems. We have a lot more to discover on our home, mother Earth. Our life is so fragile. But, the diversity of life seems to be far beyond the bounds that we ever dreamed. An announcement will be made soon, stay tuned.
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(1) from Bill Bryson’s “ A short history of nearly everything”
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707-536-3272, Wednesday, September 7, 2011
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