Quotes About Microorganisms

This symbiosis was fantastically improbable. In 3.5 billion years of history and trillions of trillions of interactions between protozoa and cyanobacteria it seems to have happened exactly once.

Over the years I've come to think of memories as tiny living things, microorganisms that swim through the brain until they've found the right compartment in which to settle down and rest. If the compartment isn't available, if there's no proper label for the memory, it takes up residence somewhere else, gets lodged in a corner and gnaws at you periodically, cropping up at odd times, or in dreams.

Bacteria and other microorganisms find it easier to infect people who worry and fret.

Bacteria live in unbelievable mixtures of hundreds or thousands of species. Like on your teeth. There are 600 species of bacteria on your teeth every morning.

A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.

I learned in biology class that more bacteria live and work in one centimeter of my colon, than the number of people who have ever existed in the world. That kind of information makes you think twice about who–or what–is actually in charge.

if only 11 percent of the world's cropland—land that is typically not in use—improved its community of soil microorganisms as much as Johnson and his colleagues did in their test plots, the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil would offset all our current emissions of carbon dioxide.

Don't forget that the flavors of wine and cheese depend upon the types of infecting microörganisms.

We're pretty interested in microbial communities on-board space stations. It's a closed-loop system. Our water is recycled; our air is recycled.

By weight, you are more human than bacteria, because your cells are bigger, but by numbers, it's not even close.

From the moment he is born to the moment he dies, man is subject to the activities of numerous microbes.

Everything I did in high school was focused on microbiology, looking at things like algae under a microscope for hours on end. When I was 13, I saved up $100 to buy a good used microscope. I was obsessed with microorganisms.

There are actually 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells: 100 trillion of them to 10 trillion of you.

Give me something about bacteria. Give me something that won't make me feel so inferior

The discovery of streptomycin as a product of a rather obscure group of microorganisms, the actinomycetes, led to the study of these organisms as potential producers of other chemotherapeutic substances.

Take, for example, the way in which physicians responded to the high mortality rates of children in orphanages early in the last century. Assuming that microorganisms were to blame, doctors separated children from one another and kept handling by adults to a minimum in order to reduce the risk of infection. Despite these mandates, children continued to die at such alarming rates that both intake forms and death certificates were completed at admission for the sake of efficiency.

Don't forget that the flavors of wine and cheese depend upon the types of infecting microörganisms.

The usurper was called Strain 121, referring to its facility of growth at 121°C.5 This is a game changer for microbiologists, because 121 degrees is the temperature inside a lab autoclave. Autoclaves sterilize surgical instruments, as well as glassware and growth media for microbiological experiments, by replacing the dry air in their steel chambers with pressurized steam. As far as we know, Strain 121 is unique: every other living thing is defeated by autoclaving.

The absence of archaea is puzzling given their evident fondness for the worst imaginable conditions on earth and ability to power ecosystems on the slimmest of organic rations. The

One gram of rich forest soil contains an estimated 100 million prokaryotes.

There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the grand recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death.