Comments on: You are not alone

You are not alone

Termite — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 21:49:46 -0800

How many different species live on or in the average human body? New Scientist's Last Word is often an interesting place to go...

By: Hackworth

Hackworth — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 21:55:03 -0800

might want to repost that first link.

By: Termite

Termite — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 22:27:31 -0800

Damn. Here's the correct link!

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 22:50:32 -0800

*all 6 quadrillion of me run screaming from the room*

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 23:19:20 -0800

all the bacteria living on the external surface of a human would fit into a medium-sized pea is this good news or bad?

By: degnarra

degnarra — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 23:23:29 -0800

Microbiology On-line "Human adults excrete their own weight in faecal bacteria every year." Yummm. Also take a look here for some bacterial fun if you're into solving medical mysteries.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 23:49:12 -0800

is this good news or bad? I'd be more concerned with the soda can's worth of bacteria actually living inside me...

By: Salmonberry

Salmonberry — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 23:56:14 -0800

When I die, I'm taking them all with me!

By: Termite

Termite — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 07:28:32 -0800

... but could we survive without them? Imagine a man completely cleaned of all bacteria: would he be able to digest his own food? Perhaps he'd drop dead, rapidly infected by one hundred kinds of lethal bacteria; I've heard that the benign/harmless bacteria in us protect us against more agressive bacteria species.

By: degnarra

degnarra — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 07:39:58 -0800

They do. But it's still nasty to think about.

By: spilon

spilon — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 10:01:39 -0800

...an amoeba that just loves the warmth that it finds inside your skull, reproducing in its millions until you drop down dead. So that explains this nasty headache I've been having..... I just thought it was a hangover.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 11:34:39 -0800

I think the estimate on the number of species is a bit low. I think Discover had an interesting article a few months back about how a microbiologist used a method for estimating the number of species in a given space using DNA analysis and upped the estimate by a few hundered. Only about half of the species inhabiting the human body have been catalogued.

By: Satapher

Satapher — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 23:11:22 -0800

... but could we survive without them? i dont think so tim.... we already survive with them

By: rudyfink

rudyfink — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 04:52:59 -0800

The numbers from the '69 study seem low. More recent things I've seen suggested something like 20% of the cells in the average body were foreign organisms. Ultimately, I don't think anyone really knows.