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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.'"
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
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as a human overlord to welcome our bacteria inhabitants
God's gift to chicks
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!)
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?
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
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!
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.
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...
Just the excuse that I have been looking for to avoid having to hoover the carpets!
Is that what women are calling taking a bath nowdays?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Man walks into the doctors
-- Doctor, I can't stop sneezing!
-- You have the Sneazles, said the doctor, after having a quick look.
-- What about my bad feet?
-- A common case of Toelio, said the dismissive doctor.
The man dropped his pants
-- and this?
-- Ah, the doctor exclaimed, the Smallcox!
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
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.
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.