Microbes

Microbes

Microbes are living creatures that are so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye. You need a microscope to see them. In some ways this might be a good thing. Can you imagine what it would be like to see all the bacteria and fungi living all over your body? More microbes exist on your hands than there are people in the entire world. But it does not stop at your hands. At this very moment, in the cubic yard of air at the tip of your nose, hundreds of thousands of microscopic bacteria, viruses, fungal spores, algae, and pollen grains are floating by (Weiss & McMichael, 2004).

Microbes consist of cells just as humans do. When examining the entire human body, it turns out that less than 10% are human cells. The remaining 90% are viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, worms, and insects. Most of these organisms do us no harm. Microbes are just doing what all living things do: looking for food, excreting waste, reproducing, forming communities, and evolving. The goal of any living creature is to survive and reproduce. Whether it is an insect, a snake, or a human, all living organisms strive for these goals, even if it means negatively influencing other living creatures. Microbes are no different (Fauci, 2005).

One major difference between microbes and other living creatures is that microbes are so small they function without a circulatory system. The human body is much larger and has a circulatory system, which delivers oxygen and nutrients to tissues and gets rid of waste products. The circulatory system uses the heart and blood vessels, which move blood throughout the body, to accomplish this. Fish need gills to expand surface area and access the dissolved oxygen in the water. Microbes have no circulatory system, yet they still prosper.

Microbes may be small, but they are able to do remarkable things. They can move through air and water, resist others, communicate, feed, learn, and adapt to their environment. Some microbes move around with cilia or tiny hairs; others use an oarlike appendage. Stationary microbes modify their environment by secreting chemicals to draw other microbes near instead of putting energy into moving (Morens et al., 2004).

Microbes have a place of origin just as animals and plants do. The kangaroo is native to Australia; the aspen tree is native to the United States. Animals and plants can live and thrive in other countries, but they have one specific place of origin. The native country or region is where the organism changes over time in response to its environment. A microbe may become more competitive in a new location because predators of that organism do not exist in the new location.

Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus is a genus of gram-positive, nonmotile, spherical (coccus) bacteria native to the skin on many animals, including humans, where it mainly inhabitats the external nasal passages. The microorganism belongs to family Staphylococcaceae, order Bacillales, class Bacilli, in phylum Firmicutes (Fauci, 2005).

Staphylococcus cells measure about 1 micrometer (µm) in diameter—their range is ...