Slashdot Mirror
Are Human Beings Organisms Or Living Ecosystems?
Hugh Pickens writes "Every human body harbors about 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering human cells 10 to one. There's been a growing consensus among scientists that bacteria are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. 'Human beings are not really individuals; they're communities of organisms,' says microbiologist Margaret McFall-Ngai. 'This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease.' Recently, for example, evidence has surfaced that obesity may well include a microbial component. Jeffrey Gordon's lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published findings that lean and obese twins — whether identical or fraternal — harbor strikingly different bacterial communities that are not just helping to process food directly; they actually influence whether that energy is ultimately stored as fat in the body. Last year, the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project to characterize the role of microbes in the human body, a formal recognition of bacteria's far-reaching influence, including their contributions to human health and certain illnesses. William Karasov, a physiologist and ecologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that the consequences of this new approach will be profound. 'We've all been trained to think of ourselves as human,' says Karasov, adding that bacteria have usually been considered only as the source of infections, or as something benign living in the body. Now, Karasov says, it appears 'we are so interconnected with our microbes that anything studied before could have a microbial component that we hadn't thought about.'"
KNEES AND TOES!!!
We are obviously our own eco-system.....we have a song and everything
"This is the value of a summer spent and a winter earned"
So the bacteria in the twins is different... why is it worded in such a way as to imply the different bacteria is the reason that one is obese and the other isn't, instead of the type of bacteria changed because being obese (and the eating that goes along with it) favor one type over the other.
Both, of course. Why can't we be an eco system that is also a self-contained individual? Arguably, we could say the same thing about Earth itself (guess who's cancer?)
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
So long as this isn't used as a marketing angle, to promote pointless fermented milk drinks,
I don't care.
Oh wait.
aren't we both? We have bacteria living in about every part of us, and do'nt forget the blood cells and all. And we sure as hell are a being made of flesh too...
as a human overlord to welcome our bacteria inhabitants
God's gift to chicks
There has to be a Star Trek episode here somewhere....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Perhaps these are the midicloriens we have been looking for. Try to speak to them with your mind and see if you can make things move... (it only works for me in the bathroom when my concentration is at its highest and the accoustics are at their best)
Also, this brings another question to mind as well. Have our snooty English teachers been correct in using "we" in weird places? "How are we feeling today? Did we do our homework?" The ramifications are... spooky.
Finally, let's tell ALL the germaphobes out there! This hand-washing nut-cases are annoying! We can either break them of their phobias or finally kill them. Either way, their irrational fears will bug me no further. ("Clean" has it's place, but primarily when it has to do with food and equipment!)
...in the gene pool
I would have to say a contained eco-system going down to the cellular level. I think either you consider everything as an eco-system, or everything as an organism because of the similarities on each level, whether it be a city, a human or a cell.
While the study of our relationship with the bacteria and other microbes that live inside us is interesting and valid its kinda dumb to talk about ourselves as ecosystems. We are another life form, that has a symbiotic relationship with those microbes in a larger ecosystem.
We don't need words like symbiotic if we are going to think of ourselves as an ecosystem. Also just about any animal or plant made of more than a few cells is going to be an ecosystem under this implied definition. I am not sure how exactly we want to define ecosystem but something a little more complex than "any thing which something lives inside" seems appropriate.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This must be why I hear those voices in my head.
"Eat that donut"
"Don't eat it!"
"Eat it!"
"I am bored"
"Natalie Portman"
I am joking.. or am I?
did you see that this is all based around an obesity study? this has to be the BEST reason-why-i'm-fat yet!
"it's not me, it's the entire living eco-system of which i am comprised. and my DNA. and it's glandular. and i'm big boned."
i think most of the people in the study were made of cake.
for we are many
Just the excuse that I have been looking for to avoid having to hoover the carpets!
Let me remind everyone that microbiologists are almost a different species (if we were organisms). I suppose, in this case, they could also be likened to a different planet.
We don't have to reject one viewpoint in favour of the other - it is equally valid to consider a human, to take some random examples, a torus, a blob of slimy water designed to carry DNA around, or a highly organised colony of specialised eukariotes.
Midi-chlorians.
I just read Good Germs Bad Germs by Jessica Snyder Sachs, a fascinating, accessible and up-to-date account of roughly the same subject matter. Will change your view on bacteria forever.
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Germs-Bad-Survival-Bacterial/dp/0809050633
Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
Human being are individuals. They have a genome (well, actually, two, 'cause of the mitochondria), they evolved, they form a population of interbreeding animals.
That said, they provide an ecosystem to a large number of microbial species, some of which are symbionts, some are parasites, some can be both. In general, we cannot live without our symbionts, and our symbionts are depending on us.
All that isn't news. This perspective on a human individual has been here for decades. What is new is that with 2nd generation sequencing it is now possible to thoroughly investigate the microbial composition of our symbionts parasites. This is an exciting new technology which allows such projects as the 1000 genomes project, Neanderthal genome sequencing, metagenomics and much, much more.
Just one more remark: given a population of genetically identical bacteria, it is sometimes wrong to call each bacterial cell an "individual". These cells can collaborate, exchange information, shape their environment and act more like an organism than a single invdividual. There are even some bacteria that can actually get together, differentiate and form a macroscopic, multicellular structure. So saying that we are colonised by 100 trillion of individuals is an exaggeration.
That said, we too can view ourselves as a colony of (mostly: think sperm / eggs and t-cells) genetically identical cells that communicate, collaborate and shape their environment, and also are (mostly, think: blood cells) physically linked together. And each our cell can be viewed as a symbiont between two organisms, each with its own genome and even its own genetic code (yep, the genetic code of the mitochondria differs from that used in the nucleus in our cells).
j. (IAAB)
Do you think we can pass responsibilities to our occupants?
Since bacteria outnumber us ten to one, do you think they see us as oppressors, since our bodies don't seem to be a functioning democracy?
Are the bacteria responsible for our preemptive strikes on the cookie jars and other resources found in the kitchen?
"Boss, I can't come to work, my bacteria are on strike".
"Don't touch me, I'm a protected ecosystem!"
You could have read essentially these ideas over 30 years ago in a book called "Lives of a Cell" http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Cell-Notes-Biology-Watcher/dp/0140047433
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
My dad's long been preaching to me about the benefits of eating yogurt to add back in good bacteria, especially after being on an antibiotic regimen.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Makes sense. I read somewhere that one of the reasons medium/high doses of radiation kill you is all the helpful bacteria in your digestive system are killed, leaving you unable to process nutrients.
A recent program on NatGeo (Explorer?) hypothesizes that viruses are also a key part of human evolution.
The "junk DNA" that we all have is likely the result of viruses.
They've also discovered that viruses in the wild actually quite easily jump from species to species, too.
In one of the experiments, they found a large amount of a certain virus in the womb of a sheep during pregnancy. When inoculated against the virus, the pregnancy would not complete.
Very interesting theory.
Sometimes I really want to be alone
But that's one state I'm never in
Because I know that I've got millions upon millions
Of tiny, one-celled organisms living on my skin
(Germs) I rub and scrub until my flesh is raw and bleeding
(Germs) But they just come right back again
(Germs) I can't even see 'em, but I know they're up to something
Hey, don't touch that - you don't know where it's been...
Germs - Weird Al
Humans are a skin disease of Mother Earth.
I, for one, bow to our Midi-chlorian over/under/inner-lords!
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2008/10/the-ultimate-pr.html
"On a crisp fall day, she sat in the exam room with an opaque tube running through her nose, down her throat and into her stomach."
"We just need that little brown bag," said Dr. Timothy Rubin, a gastroenterologist. He meant the stool sample from Jolliffe's husband, which was being processed in the lab. It was mixed with water and filtered to take out the organic matter, leaving a dark brown liquid that contained billions of bacteria.
When the little bag arrived with the sample inside, Rubin used a large syringe to inject the liquid through the tube and into Jolliffe's stomach. It was over in less than a minute.
"All I felt was cold," she said.
As a series of tubes.
Task Mangler
Or are we dancer?
"2. alkalinity (such as drinking lemon juice in water)"
pH fail. (or "pHail" as the cool kids are saying these days)
2. alkalinity (such as drinking lemon juice in water)
I see sleeping through fourth-grade science's done wonders for you...
If bacterial cells outnumber human cells 10 to 1, how come that I look like a human and not a bacteria?
Or perhaps you did not think of that, mister Researcher, or if I presume, Dr. Moriarty?
If you like shower about once every 1-2 days you're a organism. Playing PS3 and showering once a week, you're a living ecosystems.
Humans (just) human idea also referred to by Bonnie Bassler in excellent talk here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html
Since when is there a difference? :)
It's as stupid as asking if the whole planet is an organism or a living ecosystem? They are both too.
Because fractality is a basic rule of nature.
I am envious at editors and reporters. Their job is so easy. Take something homogenous. Use two different words for it. Or two different views on it. And form a false dichotomy out of it.
And you got your controversy. Stir up some dust with it. And your job is done.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Superhuman hive-mind? Or menace?
I am obviously a superior human, because I have bacteria type r2-d2. All other humans with that bacteria type should join me, and then we can enslave those inferior humans who only have the thx-1138 bacteria type.
This is my sig.
Bacteria? Really? I believe the word you're looking for is midi-chlorians.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
We are Devo!
Just in case:
Drinking those kind of silver products is not a good idea. If you think about it, stop.
Which one of us will be first to make the web site to sell shakes made of ground up weeds and household plants that claim to balance the bacteria in your blood? I'm sure that shark cartiledge will be useful for this, along with rhino horn powder.
This is my sig.
While I have to admit that the grandparent comment by the AC is pretty incoherent, the intent could have been "maintaining the correct pH balance by staying slightly more alkaline than the average person who takes in too many acidic foods and drinks, such as lemon juice in water." Still wrong, but at a higher grade level.
Has anybody read the Lucifer Principle : A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History ?
http://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Principle-Scientific-Expedition-History/dp/0871136643/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239803255&sr=8-1
It touches on several subjects, but one that I really thought interesting was the idea that the Human Body is a defense Mechanism or a weapon for its Cells. All a cell wants to do is divide and spread out. That little voice in your head that tells you to to the burbs to get a bigger house and more land, is really just your cells 'groupthink' telling you it needs more space.
All that really matters is that life is freaking AWESOME. Seriously.
--RIAmAses! Let my MP3ople go!
A billion or so years ago the forerunners of multicellular life made a devils pack with oxygen burning mitochrondia, thereby increasing their metabolic energy an order of magnitude over less powerful energy subsystems like lactosis and sulfur oxidation. This basically created animals with the power of locomotion. So I sometimes visualize a shadow "power body" inside my primary body of these teaming mitochrondia generating 90% of my power. This is not dissimular to prana in yoga, chi in daoism and the force in star wars. Not that I'm going to turn blue and start shooting electric bolts out of my fingers any time soon.
Its very difficult to separate out the different kinds of bacteria, identify them visually and cultivate them. Shotgun DNA originated by Craig Venter helps tell how many kinds of different bacteria species there are growing in different parts of the body. There are more kinds than people expected. Different locations of the body, gut, airways, skin creases, etc. have different ecologies.
Shotgun DNA is a "similar, but different approach". They first map every piece of DNA in every microbe (but in pieces). Then they look for a few key sequences somewhat conserved among species, and note minor differences. This distribution of differences gives a count of species and relatives amounts of each. Later on they may connect these to actual microbe types.
We are a virus...
From said website:
Peace On Earth?
Preservation Of Essence?
I knew it! Bacterial colonies in my body are a dirty commie plot!
Breathing is a far cheaper source of oxygenation.
Alternative medicine has been aware of this fact (that the microorganisms that live in our bodies are a normal part of our physiology) for ages.
First, modern medicine has been "aware" that they were there and had beneficial effects for decades also. There are two things you're missing:
1. The discovery is not that they help digest food and nutrients, but they might help determine how your body uses it
2. The difference between "aware of this fact" and actually doing a reproducible study to help determine whether this "fact" is true.
My only real problem with alternative medicine is that it doesn't care what is true, just what we believe to be true.
Consuming silver, at least not excessively, is beneficial. It's a fact that colloidal silver can be consumed in quantities sufficient to kill off bacteria without poisoning your body.
Consuming silver, at least not excessively, is beneficial. It's a fact that colloidal silver can be consumed in quantities sufficient to kill off bacteria without poisoning your body.
Says anonymous coward ...
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/silverad.html
I'm lazy so I won't try to find something else.
"CONCLUSIONS: We emphasize the lack of established effectiveness and potential toxicity of these products."
But why trust something published in Journal of Toxicology and Clinical Toxicology when anonymous coward on Slashdot says that it works and won't poison your body?
Also who don't want to carry a healthy metallic grey skin tone?
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/Gifs/argyria2.gif
Interestingly enough, the Taoists have been using the metaphor of the body as a microcosm of heaven and earth for thousands of years. The belief is that the same effects that manifest in nature also manifest in the body. As human beings, we aren't separate from nature. Our bodies do not behave differently than the world we live in. Any interaction that can be observed in nature has a similar, corresponding interaction within the body. Science is finally catching up to the point where we can now see those interactions, and in situations like this, they provide insights into what people have been intuiting for thousands of years.
...tackled this idea a couple generations ago in a short story where humans are completely germ-free, live in sterile environments and must wear spacesuits to wander outside to meet some 'stinky natives' that escaped.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Obviously some of these are actually nano-robots used in resurrection technology that we need to rediscover before the Centurions revolt.
I can see it now... Take this pill make your bacteria cultures work for you by burning fat.
Wasn't there an episode of Futurama where Fry ate some bad food and the parasites turned him into a gentleman?
I recommend the SF novel "Blood Music" by Greg Bear which considers the idea that humans and other animals exist to host bacteria and viruses, which are the true masters.
Lemon juice is alkalizing in the body, depite that the juice itself is acidic.
Okay, I do notice now after saying "He wasn't attempting to prove to the world anything with his own weight observations either" that he did say "And I can prove it"... so oops, sorry.
After reading through this I can no longer tolerate a sanctioned policy of genocide against an indiginous life form. Thus all bacteria and viruses must be protected like any other form of life. In our own personal ecosystem the use of weapons of mass destruction against said bacteria and viruses must stop! Save the bacteria, whales, dolphins, etc.) As delicate as the ecosystem is we must prevent mass extinction and stop polluting the ecosystem with toxic medication and antibiotics!
Oh man the Earth worshippers are gonna run with this one... Gaia has a disease...
How long till the last shread of reason is lost? Humans are machines, nothing more made up of lots of parts. You are just as worthless as a laser printer because you are no different. There is no free will, just complex biochemical reactions guided by DNA and environment. No love, just an interaction of mating protocols, chemistry, and complex algorithms running in your advanced CPU. YOu illusion of conciousness is noting more then a product of random sequences of programs surviving the evolutionary tread mill.
Scifi got it wrong, the machines do take over, we mearly give up and turn into machines... No wonder the more "advanced" we get, the cheaper life becomes and the more we treat one another like machines...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Proof, no. But anecdotes are not meaningless. *Slaps you with a large trout.*
LOL 'nuff said.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The general idea is older than that. I don't remember when it was first proposed or by whom, but shortly after we discovered that we were made up of cells, someone asked the question, "What if cells are the 'real' life form, and each of us is more properly thought of as a civilization of these cells?"
Kind of an interesting question, but not new.
Finding an obese vegetarian isn't hard. Not eating meat has nothing to do with how many calories you consume, and there are PLENTY of ways to overeat spectacularly without meat.
They live inside us, so can they influence our decision-making ?!#?
There seems to be at least one scientist that believes so. Dr. Jaroslav Flegr from Prague Charles University (founded in 1348 is one of the oldest universities in the world and nowadays is one of the most eminent educational and scientific establishments in the Czech Republic) published some mind-blowing discoveries.
Dr. Flegr's claim is a simple one. Microbes influence YOUR decision-making.
You will find the presentation here http://www.natur.cuni.cz/~flegr/toxo_slides/index.php
If you dare to reach slide 14 you will learn that:
"The infected women had higher affectothymia, which means, they were more warm-hearted, outgoing, easygoing. They had also higher superego strength, which means, they were more conscientious, persistent, moralistic, staid. Both men and women had higher guilt proneness."
Now, why this is not a mainstream science I do not know. But I will leave it for you to decide.
You can research that or you can go to flickr.com and type "Empire Builder" in the search box and see some really cool photos.
The choice is yours...
(or is it?)
Doctor: Mr. Burns, I'm afraid you are the sickest man in the United States. You have everything.
Burns: You mean I have pneumonia?
Doctor: Yes.
Burns: Juvenile diabetes?
Doctor: Yes.
Burns: Hysterical pregnancy?
Doctor: Uh, a little bit, yes. You also have several diseases that have just been discovered -- in you.
Burns: I see. You sure you haven't just made thousands of mistakes?
Doctor: Uh, no, no, I'm afraid not.
Burns: This sounds like bad news.
Doctor: Well, you'd think so, but all of your diseases are in perfect balance. Uh, if you have a moment, I can explain.
Burns: Well ...
Doctor: Here's the door to your body, see? And these are oversized novelty germs. That's influenza, that's bronchitis, and this cute little cuddle-bug is pancreatic cancer. Here's what happens when they all try to get through the door at once. We call it, "Three Stooges Syndrome."
Burns: So what you're saying is, I'm indestructible!
Doctor: Oh, no, no, in fact, even slight breeze could --
Burns: Indestructible.
SHIT, if feces were declared a form of life.
(This might seem a bit weird or off-topic, but gnawing on my mind for a year or so has been something about life and death, and the role it plays in various levels of our environment....)
All corporeal, self-ambulatory and non-ambulatory (animal & plant) life has a beginning and end, as far as we know. We emerge from a womb (vaginal or C-section, but not tubes or vinculums-- yet), plants from branches/stems or the ground or rock walls/soil/sea beds. Butt, feces eMERGE from us, and there IS life in there. It's just discarded, unwanted, and condemned to the depths (and thus, death) rather expediently if flushed, or reused as fertilizer.
Since we do tend to ignore humans, and tend to count them most valuably as vessels of knowledge, but more often as tax sources, revenue drains, and fodder for sending to war or justifying war, but ultimately find many humans a nuissance and sometimes not worth the skin they occupy, then why not declare SHIT as a form of life? It not only makes scents, and SOME sense, it might make cents, too.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
duh!
why is it worded in such a way as to imply the different bacteria is the reason that one is obese and the other isn't, instead of the type of bacteria changed because being obese (and the eating that goes along with it) favor one type over the other.
Perhaps because that was one of the findings reported in TFA?
From TFA:
"..researchers in Jeffrey Gordon's lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that lean and obese mice have different proportions of microbes in their digestive systems. Bacteria in the plumper rodents, it seemed, were better able to extract energy from food, because when these bacteria were transferred into lean mice, the mice gained weight. The same is apparently true for humans: In December Gordon's team published findings that lean and obese twinsââ"âwhether identical or fraternalââ"âharbor strikingly different bacterial communities. And these bacteria, they discovered, are not just helping to process food directly; they actually influence whether that energy is ultimately stored as fat in the body."
You know, sometimes you find surprisingly good answers to your questions if your read TFA.
To busy (or lazy) to do it myself, but some people burn off excess calories, others convert it to fat.
I know that when I was younger, I could eat anything and never gain weight, regardless of my activity or inactivity. Now I gain a little more each year.
Bruce Sterling also addressed this. I think it was in "Schismatrix" (1985) where immigrants (or refugees, or extradited criminals, etc.) from one solar system colony to another had to go through complete internal and external bacterial sterilization before they could enter. People from any given colony weren't immune to the natural microorganisms that lived in the population in other colonies.
Unfortunately for both Herbert and Sterling, the line of thinking in TFA implies that complete sterilization would, more than likely, kill a person in short order. Oh well, I guess that's why they call it "speculative fiction" - not every speculation turns out to be correct or even possible.
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
This is a great book about how free-living organisms (like ourselves) have evolved alongside parasitic organisms (like bacteria). I found it interesting that the scientists that the author interviewed all look at free-living organisms not as individuals, but as miniature eco-systems for parasites. Several scientists said "I don't see a mouse (or frog, or fish) anymore, I see a bag of parasites." A little gruesome, but true. http://www.amazon.com/Parasite-Rex-Bizarre-Dangerous-Creatures/dp/074320011X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239818586&sr=8-1
--The Programming goddess from Gorflaz
Make out with skinny chicks.
So where is the pricey SoHo boutique I can go to to be cleaned out and re-populated with an exclusive culture grown by Natalie Portman?
I know the economy is bad, but the bio venture capitalists are really slipping if this isn't an option by now.
not news
I had terrible problems with my teeth right up until the point that I started to rinse my mouth daily with hydrogen peroxide and (next) sodium bicarbonate before bed. The poor bacteria simply have no defense against this, and no they will never develop an immunity to HP, ever.
Umm.... are you sure? If I understand this article correctly, virtually all organisms possess some ability to break down HP naturally, and it is not a stretch to imagine that some would have a greater ability to do so than others and would pass this ability on to their descendants and so forth. Which isn't to say that your strategy is necessarily a bad idea, but only that nature sometimes does manage to work around our best efforts to thwart it.
Nonaggression works!
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2008/10/the-ultimate-pr.html
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I kind of object to the notion that these bacteria are living inside us as if they are parts of our bodies. As I understand it, the great majority are in our guts; most of the remainder are in skin and mucous membranes that are somewhat exposed to the outside.
The gut is not exactly part of the body. Topologically it has often been noted that the human body is like a tube or torus (a doughnut shape). Yes, there are several sphincters and other openings that can close off the gut, starting with the mouth and ending with the anus. But they open sometimes and they do offer passageway between the outside world and the inside. The gut is more like the skin in terms of how the body distinguishes the external world from its internal environment. It patrols its internals rather vigorously and attempts to destroy bacteria. "Outside" bacteria are tolerated, there is no immune system active outside the body.
So there is still a very significant distinction between those cells which are part of our body, and those cells, including these vast numbers of bacteria, that are outside our body. The gut doesn't really count.
It's always amusing posting on /. ;) from the reactions i get (why i post AC)...here's another oxygenation method: MMS (chlorine dioxide)...enjoy ;)
If you take it in large enough quantities.
The point is that silver does have a known effect of killing microorganisms, and that argyria doesn't occur if you don't take too much. Just like how any other substance you might use can be beneficial if you take a certain amount and harmful if you take too much.
Are Human Beings Organisms Or Living Ecosystems?
They are both.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Doesn't anything that isn't a single cell/element qualify?
Very few things are not the sum of their parts.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We conceive of the individual animal as a small world, existing for its own sake, by its own means. Every creature is its own reason to be. All its parts have a direct effect on one another, a relationship to one another, thereby constantly renewing the circle of life; thus we are justified in considering every animal physiologically perfect. Viewed from within, no part of the animal is a useless or arbitrary product of the formative impulse (as so often thought). Externally, some parts may seem useless because the inner coherence of the animal nature has given them this form without regard to outer circumstance. Thus... [not] the question, What are they for? but rather, Where do they come from?
(Goethe, Scientific Studies, Suhrkamp ed., vol 12, p. 121; trans. Douglas Miller)
Calculus... Now I know why I hated school...
So when Carl Sagan said, "we are each of us a multitude," he was possibly more right than he knew...
But then again, I think I was exposed to this notion in High School Biology when we covered mitochondria. The process by which separate organisms like mitochondria became inextricably paired with animal cells need not have stopped, I suppose. If that actually IS what's happening here, anyway. But so long as there's uncertainty, we're free to speculate wildly.
I really enjoyed this article. It reminds of the lectures of Alan Watts
"Human beings are not really individuals; theyâ(TM)re communities of organisms,"
This ties back to the illusion of separate self. The whole universe is a community of organisms; How can you distinguish self from other?
Microbiologists have long understood that you can't define an organism without it's environment.
"In some ways, weâ(TM)re an amalgam and a continuously evolving collective," Relman says.
Extend this idea to human communities. Is a city not a continuously evolving collective. Perhaps humans are just the symbiotic bacteria of a city. Consider the whole planet, solar system, universe; are we not all just one being?
Don't trust quackwatch. they are quacks! Their purpose it to protect the profits of the pharmecutical industy by discrediting cheap effective alternative cures which they otherwise can't compete with. Colloidal silver is a good example of this.
Did one say in the posting that 90% of our cells are bacteria and only 10% are human?
Oh, after rereading I figure: he said 10 to 1 ... my fault.
So ... where is my calculator? Ah, here it is ... 90,09% are bacteria and ... yeah where is my calculator again ... 9.91% are human?
Sounds embarrassing, or not? So if we have a case of humiliation and take a DNA probe ... we only find the bacteria involved? Then a random person gets convicted just because she is "composed" out of the same bacteria?
Sorry, why don't editors start learning to read to use their brains? Roughly 10% of a humans bio mass is composed from bacteria, and 90% of that arfe living in the digesting organs. That is old news, so what is the fuss about?
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I had a couple palmer warts from about 16 years old that were big enough that they were annoying and I would pick at them. Disappeared after about a year of macrobiotics and intensive aerobics around 31 that I got into for some other issues. Not that many years from 60, less macrobiotics and fitness and probably with a lesser immune system, I can see some return of the original sites, but greatly reduced and too small to be annoying.
I wonder if a skinny persons shit burns hotter than a fat persons. Kind of a measure of how many calories pass through someone. Seriously though I don't see why this is news. A tape worm will make someone lose weight so it makes sense that the bacteria in a person would effect weight too. Wasn't this the idea behind the yogurt with bacteria.
Doctors aren't stupid, but your dentist sees your teeth once a year for fifteen minutes (ok, yours probably more). You live with them for your whole life, and have the most advanced pattern detector known to man sitting on top of them.
The problem is that most people will either not think for themselves at all or conversely pester their doctors with stupid opinions formed after very bad analysis. The correct way to approach a doctor is that you're upper management and he's an expert consultant. Trust his knowledge and show him respect, but the buck stops with you - it's your life, and you have more time to analyze your body than he does.
based on the comments posted here it could be suggested that there is some link between geekiness and obesity :)
As long as they can convince themselves that something works, they will believe in it, even if the evidence is negative or just anecdotal.
One has to wonder anyway how alternative medicine could have been aware of the role microorganisms play in our bodies AGES ago when their existence was only discovered fairly recently in human history. This is a typical use of the "old age" fallacy to try to grant authority to woo. Just visit some of the excellent skeptic websites and blogs out there and you'll find a clear debunking of the various fallacies used to convince or seduce the unsuspecting masses (like www.quackometer.net just to name one).
Wasn't all this covered decades ago in Dawkins' most important book?
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Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Little comment. There are abundant anaerobic bacteria in your mouth already. Many, many kinds. HP is invariably deadly to them. The issue here is concentration. No the bacteria in your mouth will never, ever develop immunity to the 2.5% H202 you get at the drug store. This is an insanely high concentration in biological terms. Compare a dental x-ray to Hiroshima, for instance.