Every Man Is an Island (of Bacteria)

Shipud writes "There are ten times more bacterial cells in our body than our own cells. Most of them are located in our guts, and they affect our well-being in many ways. A group at Washington University has recently reported that although our gut microbes perform similar functions, it appears that different people have completely different compositions of gut bacteria: every man is an island, a unique microbial ecosystem composed of completely different species. One conclusion is that the whole division of bacteria into species may well be over-used in biomedicine."

Comments

Re:can anyone explain this with actual science?

[the_humeister]

Each of your cells takes up 100-1000x more space than bacteria.

Re:can anyone explain this with actual science?

[Qzukk]

Bacteria are a tiny fraction of the size of your cells.

http://www.cellsalive.com/howbig.htm has a nifty little flash movie demonstrating the size difference.