20 THINGS YOU DIDNT KNOW ABOUT BACTERIA

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20 THINGS YOU DIDNT KNOW ABOUT BACTERIA
An article by Jocelyn Rice in Discover Magazine
December 2008.
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• 1. At about 5 million trillion trillion strong,
  bacteria and their cousins, the archaea, vastly
  outnumber all other life-forms on earth.

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• 2. Lined up end to end, they would stretch some
  10 billion light-years-literally from here to the
  edge of the visible universe.

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• 3. And there are always more on the way.
  Pseudomonas natriegens, an ocean-dwelling
  bacterium, can go from birth to reproduction in
  10 minutes flat. In five hours a single cell
  could theoretically give rise to more than 1
  billion offspring.

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• 4. Bacteria have been around for at least 3.5
  billion years, making them the oldest known
  life-form on the planet.

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• 5. Humans didnt catch a glimpse of them, though,
  until 1674, when Dutch scientist Antonie van
  Leeuwenhoek spotted tiny swimming animacules
  while fiddling with the newly invented microscope.

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• 6. A compelling argument for brushing He
  discovered them while examining pond water and
  scrapings from the human mouth.

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• 7. Most bacteria have yet to be identified. In
  2003 geneticist J. Craig Venter began trolling
  the high seas and analyzing the water. On his
  first trip he fished out more than a million
  never-before-seen bacterial genes.

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• 8. The first artificial life-form will be not a
  robot but a bacterium. Not content with finding
  natural bacteria, Venter is leading an effort to
  build a bacterium from scratch.

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• 9. No escaping them Your body has 10 times more
  bacterial cells than human cells.

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• 10. Cant catch them either. Whipping their
  tails, E. coli can travel 25 times their own
  length in 1 second, equivalent to a horse running
  135 miles per hour.

http//www.cellsalive.com/animabug.htm
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• 11. Bacteria have even set up permanent camp
  inside our cells. Mitochondria, the power-houses
  that supply energy to nearly every cell in the
  body, are the descendants of bacteria that were
  engulfed by larger microorganisms billions of
  years ago.

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• 12. When you pop a pill to kill off a bad bug,
  you kill some of the good guys, too. A bacterium
  called Clostridium difficile can move into the
  prime intestinal real estate cleared out by
  antibiotics, causing painful inflammation and
  diarrhea.

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• 13. Bacteria are adept at developing resistance
  to antibiotics. Among the deadliest of resistant
  bacteria is MRSA, which killed 19,000 Americans
  in 2005 alone.

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• 14. MRSAs deadliness comes in part from a class
  of chemicals known as carotenoids, which MRSA
  uses to fight off our immune systems. Ironically,
  carotenoids are found in many healthy fruits and
  vegetables and may reduce cancer risk.

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• 15. But most bacteria are harmless, and some are
  even helpful in aiding our digestion. Mice with
  bacteria-free intestines need to eat 41 percent
  more calories than their germy counterparts.

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• 16. Floating bacteria are extremely effective at
  spurring condensation, leading to snow and rain.
  Some scientists propose spraying bacteria into
  the clouds to end droughts.

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• 17. Certain bacteria thrive in extreme
  conditions. In 2006 a probe at a South African
  gold mine turned up bacteria living nearly two
  miles underground, subsisting on the energy given
  off by radioactive rocks.

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• 18. Another species, Deinococcus radiodurans, can
  survive almost 10,000 times the dose of radiation
  lethal to humans, making it a prime candidate for
  the cleanup of nuclear waste.

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• 19. The Midas touch Australian scientists found
  that a bacterium called Ralstonia metallidurans
  can turn dissolved gold into solid nuggets.

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• 20. But can they run Windows/ By programming
  instructions into their genes, scientists have
  engineered E.coli that act like computers,
  assembling into glowing bulls-eye shapes on
  command.