Facts About Microbes
- Most microbes do not cause disease.
- Microbes first appeared on earth about 3.8 billion years ago. They are critically important in sustaining life on our planet.
- Microbes make up most living matter and display tremendous diversity, yet less than 1% have been cultured (grown in the laboratory) and studied.
- Microbes drive the chemistry of life and affect the global climate.
- Microbial cycling of such critical chemical elements as carbon and nitrogen helps keep the world inhabitable for all life forms.
- Microbes generate at least half the oxygen we breathe.
- Microbes offer unusual capabilities reflecting the diversity of their environmental niches. These may prove to be useful as a source of new genes and organisms of value in addressing bioremediation, global change, biotechnology, and energy production.
- Microbial studies will help us define the entire repertoire of organisms in specialized niches and, ultimately, the mechanisms by which they interact in the biosphere.
- Diversity patterns of microorganisms can be used for monitoring and predicting environmental change.
- Microbes are roots of life's family tree. An understanding of their genomes will help us understand how more complex genomes developed.
- Microbial genomes are modest in size and relatively easy to study (usually no more than 10 million DNA bases, compared with some 3 billion in the human or mouse genomes).
- Microbial communities are excellent models for understanding biological interactions and evolution.
- While some microbes cause disease, most are harmless and many are helpful.
- On one square-inch of our bodies, there are as many as 10,000 bacteria.
- Microbes can help fight disease and disasters such as oil spills.
- Mucus in your nose, ears, and throat traps incoming microbes.
- Scientists may have found signs of microbial life on Mars!
- The flu, chicken pox, measles, pneumonia, athlete's foot and the common cold are all caused by microbes.
- Scientists found colonies of bacteria thriving 1,600 feet below sea level without oxygen or sunlight.
- Microbes aren't trying to make you sick. They're just trying to survive.
- Without microbes there would be no life on earth.
|
Normal Skin Flora
back 
