Unbelievable Bacteria Facts That Are Astonishing For You

Microscopic organisms or microbes are single-celled living organisms of tiny size.

Microscopic organisms were discovered as early as 1665 by Robert Hooke, an English scientist, and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch scientist. They did so by constructing simple microscopes.

Microbes make up a large portion of the planet's living organisms and play an essential role in maintaining the ecosystem of Earth. There are different types of microbes, namely archaea, bacteria, algae, protozoa, viruses, fungi, and multicellular animal parasites. These organisms can also be broadly classified into prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Characteristics

Bacteria are unicellular microscopic organisms found abundantly in the environment and even in living organisms, including human cells. Both harmful bacteria and good bacteria are found on Earth, and bacterial cells are recognized as one of the earliest forms of life on the planet and the most abundant.

Five characteristics that differentiate a bacterium from another living organism are discussed below. Bacteria are single-celled organisms, and most of them spend their whole life as independent single cells.

Still, some bacteria like myxobacteria found in the soil can form multicellular fruiting bodies. Bacteria cells are elementary in their structure and organization in that they often lack a nucleus and specialized organelles.

A circular DNA is found in the nucleoid, which lacks a nuclear membrane. The DNA sequence is much shorter, which could be due to the reduced complexity of the bacterial cell. In addition, bacteria also contain smaller fragments of DNA called plasmids.

They lack plasma membrane but possess cell walls made of peptidoglycan for protection and strength. The presence of cell walls makes bacterial cells similar to plant cells.

Bacteria can reproduce using sexual and asexual modes, but most bacteria multiply through binary fission. In short, a typical bacterium cell consists of the capsule, cell wall, flagellum, pili, cytoplasm, ribosomes, and chromosomes.

Types

Bacteria can survive extreme conditions and can use inorganic and organic compounds as food. In addition to the human body, bacteria can be found in Earth's crust, soil, radioactive waste, hot springs, and arctic ice. Some bacteria live and survive in a wide range of habitats and are extremely tough, like the Deinococcus radiodurans bacteria.

The different types of bacteria can be classified based on the following criteria:

Nutritional patterns: Bacteria can either be autotrophic or heterotrophic based on their ability to prepare food.

Mode of respiration: The use of oxygen shows two types of bacteria, namely aerobic and anaerobic bacteria.

Cell wall composition: Gram stain test reveals two types of bacteria, namely gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The former appears violet in color, and the latter seems red under a microscope.

Reproduction: The mode of reproduction like binary fission, transduction, conjugation, and transformation used by bacteria divide them into different types.

The shape of bacteria: The shapes of bacterial cells result in different types of bacteria, namely coccus (spherical shaped), bacillus (rod-shaped), spirilla (spiral-shaped), Vibrios (comma-shaped), spirochaetes (corkscrew-shaped).

Health Hazards

Despite their reputation, bacteria have several beneficial uses for humans. Some bacteria are highly beneficial for the survival of human cells.

Bacteria in the digestive tract can simplify digestion by breaking down complex sugars into forms usable by the human body. Some bacteria can help the immune system by occupying the places in human cells that pathogens usually target and can even kill specific pathogens.

Bacteria can also break down dead organic material, clean oil spills, and enrich the soil with nutrients like nitrogen and organic carbon. Scientists use the ability of bacteria to make proteins to synthesize insulin.

Bacteria can also pose some serious health hazards in the form of bacterial infections, which can make a person sick. Certain kinds of bacteria or germs are harmful pathogens and can cause diseases like cholera, dysentery, pneumonia, diphtheria, typhoid, and many more.

The human body can fight most kinds of bacteria with the help of antibiotics, but resistant bacteria cannot be killed by antibiotics. Some kinds of bacteria cells can infect an unattended open wound.

Researchers have found that bacteria present in the human mouth can cause oral diseases like periodontitis and caries, which are common bacterial infections in humans. The bacterium can also cause skin infections like impetigo and cellulitis.

Fun Facts About Bacteria

Even though bacteria is one of the smallest organisms to inhabit Earth, it has great diversity and carries out significant functions. It has been used in different kinds of industries like beverage, food, and pharmaceutical industries. Some interesting facts about these wonder organisms are described in the following paragraphs. 

The number of bacterial cells in human bodies is 10 times more than the human cells in a human body, and the number of bacteria in the human mouth is more than the number of people in the world.

Sweat is basically odorless, but when it mingles with bacteria present on the skin, it produces body odor. Bacteria present in the body impact the production of hunger hormones and can cause an increase in body weight when the gut is unhealthy.

The bellybutton and mouth of humans house thousands of new bacteria species.

The smell of rain is caused by certain gram-positive bacteria present in the soil. Another kind of bacteria known as Pseudomonas natriegens can give rise to more than one billion offspring in five hours.

Scientists have found that floating bacteria effectively increased condensation and could be sprayed into clouds to end droughts. In Australia, it was discovered that Ralstonia metallidurans, a bacterium, could form solid gold from dissolved gold.

Bacteria can also communicate with each other using electrical signals, just like other animals. It is believed that more species of bacteria are yet to be discovered.