Quotes About Bacteria

The difference is staggering, by a factor of 10. In the human gut alone, there are usually around 100 trillion bacteria, while in one entire human being there are only about 10 trillion cells, counting all types.

The problem with killing 99.9 percent of bacteria is that most of them protect us from the few that can make us sick.

Getting the vegetables submerged is the most critical factor for success in vegetable fermentation.

As a result of the War on Bacteria, our bacterial context is rapidly shifting. One bacterium formerly ubiquitous in humans, Helicobacter pylori, which resides in the stomach, is now found in fewer than 10 percent of American children and may be headed toward extinction.62 H. pylori has been associated with humans for at least 60,000 years, and there is evidence that closely related bacteria have lived in the stomachs of mammals since their emergence 150 million years ago.

Given the War on Bacteria so culturally prominent in our time, the well-being of our microbial ecology requires regular replenishment and diversification now more than ever.

tetanus, and neither

Microbes make up 80 percent of all biomass, says microbiologist Carl Woese. In one-fifth of a teaspoon of seawater, there are a million bacteria (and 10 million viruses), Craig Venter says, adding, "If you don't like bacteria, you're on the wrong planet. This is the planet of the bacteria

The human microbiome in our gut, mouth, skin, and elsewhere, harbors three thousand kinds of bacteria with 3 million distinct genes. (Our own cells struggle by on only eighteen thousand genes or so.)

multibacillary and paucibacillary

computer program can play havoc with climate-control systems. A particularly nasty pathogen—mutant strains of bacteria

My bacteria glow in the dark - no human being doesn't like that.

In the womb, humans are free of microbes. Colonization begins during the journey down the birth canal, which is riddled with bacteria, some of which make their way onto the newborn's skin.

We inherit every one of our genes, but we leave the womb without a single microbe. As we pass through our mother's birth canal, we begin to attract entire colonies of bacteria. By the time a child can crawl, he has been blanketed by an enormous, unseen cloud of microorganisms - a hundred trillion or more.

The biggest food-related risk in pregnancy is listeria. It's a dangerous bacteria, to which pregnant women are especially susceptible, that can lead to miscarriage or stillbirth.

For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.

When we look at 105-year-old people around the world, they carry the diverse gut microbiome of 30-year-old people.

When we prescribe antibiotics for a strep throat, it's not even for the strep throat. It's for the complications of the strep throat.

Lectins bind to receptors on the surface of each cell lining the gut, breaking down the tight junctions that normally make an impenetrable barrier between the intestinal contents including bacteria and ourselves.

Microbes. Bacteria. Worms underground that mingle our parts with everything. It's generous." He locks his fingers in hers. "And infinite." Mr. Bell squares his face to hers. "If you can get over the dreaded finite.

What do you think?" "No way. Dirt to dirt. One Life to Live." Ruth winces. "Why? What's wrong with that?" he asks. "Microbes. Bacteria. Worms underground that mingle our parts with everything. It's generous." He locks his fingers in hers. "And infinite." Mr. Bell squares his face to hers. "If you can get over the dreaded finite.

how about hollandaise sauce? Not for me. Bacteria love hollandaise. And hollandaise, that delicate emulsion of egg yolks and clarified butter, must be held at a temperature not too hot nor too cold, lest it break when spooned over your poached eggs. Unfortunately, this lukewarm holding temperature is also the favorite environment for bacteria to copulate and reproduce in. Nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to order.

Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye.

Just because red meat has germs doesn't necessarily mean that it will make you sick.

A year on, Eleanor remained haunted by what happened to her. She still had no idea where the bacteria came from. Perhaps the foot soak and pedicure she had gotten at a small hair-and-nail shop the day before that wedding.