Tagged: Microorganisms
A Brave New World: You
The Pasteurian Revolution of the 1800’s heralded in a new paradigm of disease. Previously unexplained health phenomena could now be shown to be derived from “germs” – microorganisms invisible to the naked eye. The term “germ” quickly took on a negative connotation and until recently the microbial world has been seen primarily as a breeding ground for invisible enemies to human health. Its pretty incredible actually, the distaste the word “bacteria” instills in us, when really, it simply refers to a domain of prokaryotes. So, is the entire microbial world bent on our demise? I think the answer to this question can be summed up in one simple statistic:
Inside of you there are 1013 human cells and 1014 bacteria cells.
In other words, for every one cell of you there are ten that are not you…Wait, what? The first question this recent discovery may fuel is a stumbled WHAT? But lets digress for a moment and ask, why?
