Did you know?

• They're so tiny that we don't think about them much, but bacteria make up at least 80% of all living matter on this planet. That means that all the bacteria in the world weigh more than all the animals and plants combined!
• The number of individual bacteria in your mouth could easily exceed the number of people living on earth, and only half of the roughly 600 species that live in the mouth have been identified.
• Bacteria are responsible for a number of human diseases such as strep throat, but only a few bacteria out of the thousands of known species in the world pose threats to human health.
• Bacteria living in your gut help you extract more energy from your food, manufacture vitamins for you, and kill off invaders that could cause infections.
• Bacteria help us make yogurt and cheese.
• The decomposing action of bacteria helps recycle nutrients in ecosystems.
• Some bacteria can gather up minerals and create rich deposits. The famous Serra Pelada gold field in the Amazon jungle was not formed by the usual mechanisms of ore formation, but by swarms of bacteria that over millions of years concentrated the gold from soils, rivers, and rock.
• Some bacteria can make their own food from chemicals at the bottom of the ocean where there is no sunlight.

Intro to bacteria

Cyanobacteria

Microbe Zoo

Microbes in the News

Extremophiles

Photo courtesy of Dr. Morgan Vis

http://www.plantbio.ohiou.edu/epb/instruct/phycology/algaeindex.htm