MICROBES

Although existing in a largely unseen world, microbes have a major impact on our existence as well as plants. They can be used to control disease through production of antibiotics or by acting as biological control agents, are a major source of useful products, including pharmaceuticals, food supplements, and insecticidal compounds, and have a key environmental role in decomposition of organic matter, including wood decay and the processing of human wastes. Here is an outline of the major groups of microorganisms: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Viruses Bacteria Algae Fungi Protozoa

VIRUSES
A virus is too small to be seen without a microscope. A virus is basically a tiny bundle of genetic material carried in a shell called the viral coat. Some viruses have an additional layer around this coat called an envelope. There are thousands of different viruses that come in many shapes. Many are multi-sided or polyhedral. A virus does not taper to a point, but is shaped the same all around. Other viruses are shaped like spiky ovals or bricks with rounded corners. Some are like skinny sticks while others look like pieces of looped string. Viruses are found on or in just about every material and environment on Earth from soil to water to air. They're basically found anywhere there are cells to infect. Viruses can infect every living thing. However, viruses tend to be somewhat picky about what type of cells they infect. Plant viruses are not equipped to infect animal cells, for example, though a certain plant virus could infect a number of related plants. Sometimes, a virus may infect one animal and do no harm, but cause a great deal of damage when it gets into a different but closely related animal. {Since the virus is living off of the animal, it doesn t wanna kill its host. It tortures it but doesn t kill} Viruses exist to reproduce only. To do that, they have to take over suitable host cells. Upon landing on a suitable host cell, a virus gets its genes inside the cell either by tricking the host cell to pull it inside, or by connecting its viral coat with the host cell wall/membrane and releasing its genes inside, or by injecting their genes into the host cell's DNA. The viral genes are then copied many times, using the process the host cell would normally use to reproduce its own DNA. The new viral genes then come together and assemble into whole new viruses. The new viruses are either released from the host cell without destroying the cell or eventually build up to a large enough number that they burst the host cell.

BACTERIA
Bacteria consist of only one cell, but they're a very complex group of living things. Some bacteria can live in temperatures above the boiling point and in cold below the freezing point.

There are thousands of species of bacteria, but all of them are basically one of three different shapes. Some are rod or stick-shaped; others are shaped like little balls. Others still are helical or spiral in shape. Some bacteria cells exist as individuals while others cluster together to form pairs, chains, squares or other groupings. Some bacteria can make their own food from sunlight, just like plants. Also like plants, they give off oxygen. Other bacteria absorb food from the material they live on or in. Some of these bacteria can live off iron or sulfur. The bacteria that live in your stomach absorb nutrients from the digested food you've eaten. Some bacteria move about their environment by means of long, whip-like structures called flagella. They rotate their flagella like tiny outboard motors to propel themselves through liquid environments. They may also reverse the direction in which their flagella rotate so that they tumble about in one place. Other bacteria secrete a slime layer and ooze over surfaces like slugs. Others stay almost in the same spot. Bacteria live on or in just about every material and environment on Earth from soil to water to air and from your body to the Arctic ice to the Sahara deserts. Each square centimeter of your skin averages about 100,000 bacteria. A single teaspoon of soil contains more than a billion (1,000,000,000) bacteria.

ALGAE
Algae are found in fresh and salt water around the world. They can also grow on rocks and trees and in soil when enough water is available. Most algae are able to make energy from sunlight, like plants do. They produce a large amount of the oxygen we breathe. However, at some stages of their lives, some algae get their nutrients from other living things. Diatoms are one kind of algae. They have hard shells made out of glass. When they die, these shells sink to the bottom of their watery environments. We mine deposits of these glass shells that formed hundreds of thousands of years ago to make abrasives, shiny road paint and grit in toothpaste. Diatoms come in all sorts of shapes some are round and others are oval. Some look like leaves and others like fat commas. Because algae make so much oxygen, these microbes are very helpful. But sometimes certain kinds of algae can also grow in such large numbers that when they suddenly die off en masse, the breaking down of their cells by bacteria destroys the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, hurting the animals and plants that live there. [Eutriphication and algal bloom]

FUNGI
Fungi are organisms that scientists once confused with plants. However, scientists have found that, at the cell level, the fungi are more like animals than they are like plants. For one thing, fungi cannot synthesize their own food like plants do, but instead they eat other organisms as do animals. Fungi come in a variety of shapes and sizes and different types. They can range from single cells to enormous chains of cells that can stretch for miles. Fungi include single-celled living things that exist individually, such as yeast, and multicellular clusters, such as molds or mushrooms. Yeast cells look round or oval under a microscope. They're too small to see as individuals, but you can see large clusters of them as a white powdery coating on fruits and leaves.

Molds are described as filament-like because they form long filament-like, or thread-like, strands of cells called hyphae. These hyphae are what give mold colonies their fuzzy appearance. They also form the fleshy body, or mushroom, that some species grow. It may seem strange to think of something as big as a mushroom as a microbe. But the cells of the hyphae making up that mushroom are connected in a closer way than the cells of other multicellular living things, like you and me, are. Fungi are basically stationary. But they can spread either by forming reproductive spores that are carried on wind and rain or by growing and extending their hyphae. Hyphae grow as new cells form at the tips, creating even longer chains of cells. Fungi absorb nutrients from living or dead organic matter that they grow on. [Saprophytes] They absorb simple, easily dissolved nutrients, such as sugars, through their cell walls. They give off special digestive enzymes to break down complex nutrients into simpler forms that they can absorb. Some fungi are quite useful to us. We've used several kinds to make antibiotics to fight bacterial infections. These antibiotics are based on natural compounds the fungi produce to compete against bacteria for nutrients and space. We use baker's yeast, to make bread rise and to brew beer. Fungi break down dead plants and animals and keep the world tidier. We're exploring ways to use natural fungal enemies of insect pests to get rid of these bugs. There are some dangerous fungi that cause diseases in plants, animals and people. Fungi ruin about a quarter to half of harvested fruits and vegetables each year.

PROTOZOA
The word protozoa means "little animal." They are named as such because many species behave like tiny animals; they hunt other microbes as food. Protozoa mainly feed on bacteria, but they also eat other protozoa, and sometimes fungi. Some protozoa absorb food through their cell tissues. Others surround food and engulf it. Others have openings called mouth pores into which they sweep food. All protozoa digest their food in stomach-like compartments. As they digest, they make and give off nitrogen, which is an element that plants and other higher creatures can use. Protozoa vary in size from 1/5,000 to 1/50 of an inch in diameter. They can be classified into three general groups based on their shape. One group is the Ciliates, which are generally the largest protozoa. They have hair-like projections called cilia and they eat the other two types of protozoa as well as bacteria. The second group is the Amoebae. The third group is the Flagellates, which are usually the smallest of the protozoa and have one or several long, whip-like projections called flagella extending from their cells. To hunt, protozoa have to be able to move about. Amoebas ooze about by extending parts of their cells. Amoebae have fluid cell membranes or coverings that they can stretch out, bend and curve. As the membrane moves outward, the fluid and other parts inside the cell follow, flowing into the new bulge created by the moving membrane. [Pseuodpods] Many Ciliates swim along by beating their cilia in a rhythmic pattern, like so many tiny oars. Flagellates swim by waving their flagella, using them much like a fish uses its tail to push itself through water. Most protozoa do us no harm. But there are a few that cause diseases. One type of amoeba can live in human intestines. It feeds on red blood cells and causes a disease known as dysentery. Another species of protozoa can sicken hundreds of thousands of people when it gets into the tap water. Perhaps the best-known deadly protozoa causes malaria, a terrible disease that leads to about 800,000 deaths each year worldwide.

   

Bacillus thuringiensis - a common soil bacterium that is a natural pest-killer in gardens and on crops. Arbuscular mycorrhizas - fungus living in the soil that helps crops take up nutrients from the soil. Saccharomyces cerevisiae - baker's yeast that makes bread rise. Escherichia coli - one of many kinds of microbes that live in your digestive system to help you digest your food every day.  Streptomyces - bacteria in soil that makes an antibiotic used to treat infections.  Pseudomonas putida - one of many microbes that clean wastes from sewage water at water treatment plants.  Lactobacillus acidophilus - one of the bacteria that turn milk into yogurt.

There are many other important jobs microbes do. They are used to make medicine. They break down the oil from oil spills. They make about half of the oxygen we breathe. They are the foundation of the food chain that feeds all living things on earth. Where there is water, there are microbes. Microbes, like other living organisms, need water to live and reproduce. However, some microbes prefer environments that have more water than the millimeters of water surrounding a particle of soil, or than is found in many foods. There are many types of watery environments. These types are freshwater ponds, streams, puddles, lakes, rivers, and swamps and also salty seas with three times the salt concentration of the ocean. Microbes live in overgrown slime, on pipes and in open oceans with few nutrients to support microbial life. Microbes thrive in streams with lots of oxygen to murky bogs that have no oxygen. In ponds there is a rich thriving ecosystem of microbial life including green and purple bacteria and algae, sulfate reducers, methane producers, and others. Many microbes live in the bottom of lakes and rivers in sediments. Many microbes cannot survive except in the presence of high concentrations of salt. The largest watery place on earth is the ocean. Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and are responsible for producing about half of the world's organisms, which includes the plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. Most life in the oceans lives at the sunlit ocean surface. Below 25 meters there is little light in the ocean, and life productivity decreases. As well as little light, deeper waters are cooler, which supports less life. Below 50 meters, the temperature is less than 10 degrees Celsius.

UGLIEST VIRUSES
HIV/AIDS - The Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV causes the disease we know as AIDS. AIDS is a pandemic a disease outbreak that is happening all over the world. Right now, HIV infects more than 36,000,000 people across the world, so that death toll will definitely get a lot bigger over the next several years. HIV doesn t kill people itself. Instead, the virus shuts down a person s immune defenses the tools used to fight off invading microbes by infecting and destroying important immune cells called T cells. Once a person loses too many T cells, his or her body can no longer deal with other microbes that cause infections. HIV merely opens the floodgates. Eventually HIV-infected people become overrun by harmful microbes and die of lung infections, skin infections or other diseases. The Flu Virus - Every year during what s called "the flu season" tens of thousands of people get the flu. Despite feeling all achy and lousy for several days, most people eventually beat the virus and recover just fine. Worldwide, the flu virus has killed at least 21,000,000 people.

The Plague - Back in the 14th century, the bacteria that causes bubonic plague, or the Black Death as it was also known, was the deadliest microbe of all. In just a few years, from 1347 to 1351, the plague killed off about 75,000,000 people worldwide, including one-third of the entire population of Europe at that time. The plague bacteria cause painful swellings as large as an orange to form in the armpits, neck and groin. These swellings often burst open, oozing blood and pus. Blood vessels leak blood that puddles under the skin, giving the skin a blackened look. That s why the disease became known as the Black Death. At least half of its victims die within a week. The pneumonic form of plague causes victims to sweat heavily and cough up blood that starts filling their lungs. Almost no one survived it during the plague years. Yersinia pestis is the deadliest microbe ever known, although HIV might catch up to it. Yersinia pestis is still around in the world. Fortunately, with bacteria-killing antibiotics and measures to control the pests rats and mice that spread the bacteria, it is being conquered. Ebola, the Bloody Virus - Ebola is definitely an ugly killer. It is part of a group of viruses that, among other effects on the body, cause the blood to stop clotting. Victims begin oozing blood from their mouths, noses, internal organs, even their eyes. It kills up to almost 90% of those who get infected. With that kind of death rate, Ebola would be the deadliest microbe of all if it was more common.

FOODS
y Beer - Grains, such as barley, are converted to beer with the help of yeast. Hops, (flowers of hops vine), are added for flavoring and to prevent the growth of unwanted microbes that would otherwise ruin the beer. Yeast - Saccharomyces cereviceae, or yeast, is a fungus. When grown without air, yeast produces alcohol (ethanol). Bread - The same organism used to make beer can also be used to make bread. Bread is made from grains fermented with yeast. Kneading bread gives oxygen to the yeast so it can produce carbon dioxide so bread will rise. The yeast produce the gas carbon dioxide and the alcohol ethanol. The carbon dioxide gas makes the bread rise. The ethanol evaporates during baking. Chocolate - Chocolate is prepared with the help of microbes. Chocolate comes from the seeds of cacao trees. These seeds are in a white fleshy pod. To get the seeds out of the pod, the pod is allowed to ferment with naturally occurring microbes that include yeasts and bacteria that produce an acid that helps to eat away the seed pod cacao beans. Wine - Fruit juice is converted to wine with the help of yeast. The same microbe used to make wine can also be used to make bread. Yogurt - Yogurt is made from fermented milk. Milk is rich in sugars, particularly the sugar lactose. Since microbes like sugars, milk is a great feast for microbes. Lactobacilli are the bacteria that convert milk to yogurt. In the process of using the milk sugar, Lactobacillus produces acid which makes the yogurt sour and a less suitable place for other microbes.

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