Infinitesimally small, fleetingly short lived. That pretty much covers the physical description of a microbe - if one has a microscope and the patience to observe its 20-minute lifespan*. (*of one bacterium, for example, but it is known to multiply to over 2 million copies of itself in 7 hours. Add another hour and it becomes a colony of over 16 million).
Below is the E. coli bacteria magnified 10,000 times.
Since the first moment the scientific world realized these invisible creatures were responsible for the loss of millions upon millions of human lives and livestock (from chicken to cattle) and countless non-lethal but nevertheless miserable illness and suffering, we had been waging a never ending war against them. The bad news is that we are not winning. The good news is that we've had some significant victories. Enough wins to have saved millions of lives. Enough for our species to survive this far - up to today. But the microbe is one formidable adversary. Bacteria has a remarkable ability to mutate within hours after exposure to anything that threatens them, such as antibiotics if not taken to the entire prescribed dosage. On the other hand antibiotics do not work against viruses.
Now, before we cast eternal distaste for the microbe, think of this greatest irony of all irony: our very existence actually depends on them - not from just a few varieties, but actually from a lot of them. Of the million different kinds of microbes, only 1415 of them (exactly) cause illness on humans; unfortunately, almost a third of all deaths worldwide are from infectious diseases each year. Fortunately, we live because of them too. Microbes co-evolved with us and likely influenced the trajectory of the changes we went through.
"Make no mistake. This is a planet of microbes. We are here at their pleasure. They don't need us at all. We'd be dead in a day without them."
------ Bill Bryson
Life, as we come to realize is tiled with endless dichotomy.
Life, as we come to realize is tiled with endless dichotomy.
Microbes mind bogglingly outnumber us. But even more exceedingly head numbing is the fact that if we actually put all humans on one side of a balance scale and all bacteria on the other abruptly, we'd all be sling shot into space. That is because all the bacteria on earth outweigh us by more than 1100 times to 1. And that is just bacteria. When you add to it all the viruses, fungi, algae and protozoa (all belonging to the family of microbes), then there is no question, they own this planet.
Our own body is literally a planet for microbes. That said, the one other ego-shattering sentiment is that our own bodies are in reality planets of microbes. There are an equal amount of our cells and bacterial cells in our own body (in trillions). But most of our cells are red blood cells which we're told are not really cells (in the strict biological definition of a cell) but merely vehicles for hemoglobin (oxygen-carrying protein). Our cells are giants compared to bacteria but when it comes to genes - those that contain information about us and bacteria - our genes are outnumbered twenty thousand to twenty million of the microbe's own. So, in terms of the number of genes we are 99% bacterial. But not to worry. Our cells are gigantic compared to bacteria; consequently, our cells matter more.
Our side of the story though is incomplete as an unreadable book if we do not include the fact that our physical existence begun long before we are born. From the moment of our development in the womb, microbes are already in our gut. Our mothers put them there through the umbilical cord to prepare us after we leave the protection of the womb and those microbes and other later microscopic interlopers will be there all throughout our life cycle. And indeed, life is one cycle that revolves around microbes. Every other living thing from small mammals to the blue whale to fish to birds, even earthworms and termites depend on microbes to help process whatever they eat during digestion, even manufacture certain vitamins inside the bodies and help fight off the bad microbes.
Microbes not only help in digestion, they alone can ferment milk so we can have cheese; convert hops into beer and ferment wine; even makes fruit cake possible and for fruit cake to survive beyond the jokes about it. It makes the story plausible for the fruitcake to be re-gifted a million times, without degrading or rendered inedible. Termites too love microbes. Otherwise, rotting trees and wooden rafters and posts in your home will not be of use to them, if not for microbes helping them to process pulp. Termites own microbes. Or, so they think, if termites are capable of thought. In reality microbes own them too.
Ownership of this planet is really not up for grabs. The microbes own it. Microbes had shaped our history. They had a far greater impact on our development as a society, even shaping our civilization. That is a pretty bold statement, you say. I will cite just one example.
Let me mention this first. Recently in the news was about two cases of pneumonic plague confirmed in China. The Chinese government downplayed the threat that it could develop into an epidemic, and they may be right. What is true too is that the most dreaded bubonic plague , or "Black Death", that ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century originated from China.
Yersinia Pestis, or just Y. pestis, is the strain of bacteria carried by fleas. Though rats then were blamed for the spread of bubonic plague in Europe, fleas were the direct culprit and since fleas also transfer from human to human, not just from rat to human, rats then were only partly to blame. Indeed, rats were themselves victims of the flea infestation. It turned out human sanitation, or lack thereof, was much more likely to blame and in many instances the bacteria was transferred directly by human to human contact. Now, you know.
"Black Death". It decimated between a fourth or a third of the population of Europe, depending on varying historical data. There were two pivotal impacts. First, there was an immediate cessation of wars. Territorial and border conflicts stopped. Second, the reduced population depleted the work force that tended to the fields for agriculture and livestock that rendered the lands unproductive.
Since those lands were owned as fiefdoms by aristocrats, feudal lords and members of royalty, the diminished income and the soaring cost of rising wages (demand for labor was way higher than the supply of laborers) tipped the balance between aristocracy and the common people. Social hierarchy was no longer as severe as it was before the plague. It did not take long for Europe's society to be reshaped to what it looks like today.
Just to be clear though, so as not to mislead, there are many more diseases around the world that have countless casualties. I just picked on the plague in Europe as an example. As is well known, malaria continues to kill more people even today and the mosquito, just like the rat, is only a carrier but that the protozoa parasite is the direct cause of the malady.
Ireland, from 1845 to 1849, was stricken by widespread potato crop failure "caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant". That period was also called the Irish Potato Famine. About 1 million people perished. That resulted in one massive migration of the 19th century, predominantly towards the United States. Since then the Irish contribution to America greatly enriched the adopted land economically and culturally in many significant ways. Just to name a few, famous Americans of Irish descent were Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John F. Kennedy, Randolph Hearst and many, many more. History was forever changed because a microbe caused the Great Famine.
So, we are torn between humility on one hand and a sense of superiority on the other because, well, first of all, we are equipped to know about microbes while they are oblivious to who we are; secondly, here I am writing about them and you reading it but there is just no way that even collectively they can make one sense of one word here. Microbes, singly or collectively, can never appreciate the beauty of a sunset or feel the pain of sorrow. But why is the microbe so significant?
Is the microbe a Divine implement? For those not so inclined to assign this to a Supreme Being, is the microbe the pen and pencil of evolution? Even more intriguing: Do the microbes represent the countless pigments used by the Creator or by the evolutionary artist to not only paint our world on a canvass with an original painting but are responsible too for the constant revisions and improvements that continue to occur today? Setting those unanswerable questions aside, it is true we have in our hands the tools to understand the microbe. Hopefully, we continue to increase our knowledge and expand our understanding. That is the best we can do because we are not equipped to totally comprehend the meaning or reasons why despite the microbe's virulence, not everyone dies from it while others perish. That requires far more wisdom than we can conceivably attain.
Though we can take satisfaction from the fact that we are physically stronger, intellectually developed because of and not despite the presence of the microbe. The microbe can be treated as divine insurance, or evolution's best tool for life to survive and move on in case we somehow mess things up on this planet. The microbe will not only be the ultimate survivor but it is also likely the most plausible agent for life to re-start and re-emerge if we mis-manage this planet's wellbeing. We can speculate too that in who-knows-how-many millions of years from now the microbe is the likely carrier of life to other extraterrestrial worlds.
Today, right at this moment, depending on how much you weigh, you have within you anywhere from 1-1/2 to 6 pounds of microbes in your body. That is not to be squeamish about. It is to be grateful for. You are equipped with an invisible sentinel to keep you alive. Undeniably, as I had mentioned before, so much is involved, so much has contributed to the making of you. The microbe is that invisible component we need to be aware of.
Postscript:
The microbe also provides us a profound metaphor for life. Much of the backdrop for human nature and social behavior is invisible too, much like the microbe. Thoughts, intents, even feelings are all invisible to everyone except to the person who harbors them. Invisible that these are, their impacts are not to be trifled with. Love, sympathy, caring, loyalty, devotion, piety, etc. are generated intensely first within us all but so are envy, jealousy, greed, criminal and deviant intents, etc., until they are acted upon. Like the good and bad microbes, they may be invisible but they do exist within us all. The thought of caring for someone or to be sympathetic to others, even those that are a continent away are beneficial to the human race. Unfortunately, greed and jealousy are as virulent as a microbial assault. The mind, like the physical body, is a harbor for virulence. In reality history is filled with despots and dictators acting on their greed and corrupted minds to cause the death of millions of people. Clearly more than caused by epidemics. Fortunately for us, despots and dictators are outnumbered by those who are not.
So far it is fortuitous that there are more vaccines of morality and caring for each other to stave off an all out malevolence to overwhelm human nature or weaken the human spirit.
Our own body is literally a planet for microbes. That said, the one other ego-shattering sentiment is that our own bodies are in reality planets of microbes. There are an equal amount of our cells and bacterial cells in our own body (in trillions). But most of our cells are red blood cells which we're told are not really cells (in the strict biological definition of a cell) but merely vehicles for hemoglobin (oxygen-carrying protein). Our cells are giants compared to bacteria but when it comes to genes - those that contain information about us and bacteria - our genes are outnumbered twenty thousand to twenty million of the microbe's own. So, in terms of the number of genes we are 99% bacterial. But not to worry. Our cells are gigantic compared to bacteria; consequently, our cells matter more.
Our side of the story though is incomplete as an unreadable book if we do not include the fact that our physical existence begun long before we are born. From the moment of our development in the womb, microbes are already in our gut. Our mothers put them there through the umbilical cord to prepare us after we leave the protection of the womb and those microbes and other later microscopic interlopers will be there all throughout our life cycle. And indeed, life is one cycle that revolves around microbes. Every other living thing from small mammals to the blue whale to fish to birds, even earthworms and termites depend on microbes to help process whatever they eat during digestion, even manufacture certain vitamins inside the bodies and help fight off the bad microbes.
Microbes not only help in digestion, they alone can ferment milk so we can have cheese; convert hops into beer and ferment wine; even makes fruit cake possible and for fruit cake to survive beyond the jokes about it. It makes the story plausible for the fruitcake to be re-gifted a million times, without degrading or rendered inedible. Termites too love microbes. Otherwise, rotting trees and wooden rafters and posts in your home will not be of use to them, if not for microbes helping them to process pulp. Termites own microbes. Or, so they think, if termites are capable of thought. In reality microbes own them too.
Ownership of this planet is really not up for grabs. The microbes own it. Microbes had shaped our history. They had a far greater impact on our development as a society, even shaping our civilization. That is a pretty bold statement, you say. I will cite just one example.
Let me mention this first. Recently in the news was about two cases of pneumonic plague confirmed in China. The Chinese government downplayed the threat that it could develop into an epidemic, and they may be right. What is true too is that the most dreaded bubonic plague , or "Black Death", that ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century originated from China.
Yersinia Pestis, or just Y. pestis, is the strain of bacteria carried by fleas. Though rats then were blamed for the spread of bubonic plague in Europe, fleas were the direct culprit and since fleas also transfer from human to human, not just from rat to human, rats then were only partly to blame. Indeed, rats were themselves victims of the flea infestation. It turned out human sanitation, or lack thereof, was much more likely to blame and in many instances the bacteria was transferred directly by human to human contact. Now, you know.
"Black Death". It decimated between a fourth or a third of the population of Europe, depending on varying historical data. There were two pivotal impacts. First, there was an immediate cessation of wars. Territorial and border conflicts stopped. Second, the reduced population depleted the work force that tended to the fields for agriculture and livestock that rendered the lands unproductive.
Since those lands were owned as fiefdoms by aristocrats, feudal lords and members of royalty, the diminished income and the soaring cost of rising wages (demand for labor was way higher than the supply of laborers) tipped the balance between aristocracy and the common people. Social hierarchy was no longer as severe as it was before the plague. It did not take long for Europe's society to be reshaped to what it looks like today.
Just to be clear though, so as not to mislead, there are many more diseases around the world that have countless casualties. I just picked on the plague in Europe as an example. As is well known, malaria continues to kill more people even today and the mosquito, just like the rat, is only a carrier but that the protozoa parasite is the direct cause of the malady.
Ireland, from 1845 to 1849, was stricken by widespread potato crop failure "caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant". That period was also called the Irish Potato Famine. About 1 million people perished. That resulted in one massive migration of the 19th century, predominantly towards the United States. Since then the Irish contribution to America greatly enriched the adopted land economically and culturally in many significant ways. Just to name a few, famous Americans of Irish descent were Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John F. Kennedy, Randolph Hearst and many, many more. History was forever changed because a microbe caused the Great Famine.
So, we are torn between humility on one hand and a sense of superiority on the other because, well, first of all, we are equipped to know about microbes while they are oblivious to who we are; secondly, here I am writing about them and you reading it but there is just no way that even collectively they can make one sense of one word here. Microbes, singly or collectively, can never appreciate the beauty of a sunset or feel the pain of sorrow. But why is the microbe so significant?
Is the microbe a Divine implement? For those not so inclined to assign this to a Supreme Being, is the microbe the pen and pencil of evolution? Even more intriguing: Do the microbes represent the countless pigments used by the Creator or by the evolutionary artist to not only paint our world on a canvass with an original painting but are responsible too for the constant revisions and improvements that continue to occur today? Setting those unanswerable questions aside, it is true we have in our hands the tools to understand the microbe. Hopefully, we continue to increase our knowledge and expand our understanding. That is the best we can do because we are not equipped to totally comprehend the meaning or reasons why despite the microbe's virulence, not everyone dies from it while others perish. That requires far more wisdom than we can conceivably attain.
Though we can take satisfaction from the fact that we are physically stronger, intellectually developed because of and not despite the presence of the microbe. The microbe can be treated as divine insurance, or evolution's best tool for life to survive and move on in case we somehow mess things up on this planet. The microbe will not only be the ultimate survivor but it is also likely the most plausible agent for life to re-start and re-emerge if we mis-manage this planet's wellbeing. We can speculate too that in who-knows-how-many millions of years from now the microbe is the likely carrier of life to other extraterrestrial worlds.
Today, right at this moment, depending on how much you weigh, you have within you anywhere from 1-1/2 to 6 pounds of microbes in your body. That is not to be squeamish about. It is to be grateful for. You are equipped with an invisible sentinel to keep you alive. Undeniably, as I had mentioned before, so much is involved, so much has contributed to the making of you. The microbe is that invisible component we need to be aware of.
Postscript:
The microbe also provides us a profound metaphor for life. Much of the backdrop for human nature and social behavior is invisible too, much like the microbe. Thoughts, intents, even feelings are all invisible to everyone except to the person who harbors them. Invisible that these are, their impacts are not to be trifled with. Love, sympathy, caring, loyalty, devotion, piety, etc. are generated intensely first within us all but so are envy, jealousy, greed, criminal and deviant intents, etc., until they are acted upon. Like the good and bad microbes, they may be invisible but they do exist within us all. The thought of caring for someone or to be sympathetic to others, even those that are a continent away are beneficial to the human race. Unfortunately, greed and jealousy are as virulent as a microbial assault. The mind, like the physical body, is a harbor for virulence. In reality history is filled with despots and dictators acting on their greed and corrupted minds to cause the death of millions of people. Clearly more than caused by epidemics. Fortunately for us, despots and dictators are outnumbered by those who are not.
So far it is fortuitous that there are more vaccines of morality and caring for each other to stave off an all out malevolence to overwhelm human nature or weaken the human spirit.
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