Bacteria are one of the very essential things that make life possible on earth.
They live mostly on temperate areas, on skin, in the body, but also outside the human body. Some can survive close to the boiling point; some survive on ice and in ocean depths. They also blow about the atmosphere, and are even thought to reproduce within the clouds overhead. Some lithotrophic (rock loving) bacteria have been found over three thousand feet beneath the surface of the earth living in solid rock.
Even a few bacteria have been reportedly found in radioactive waste. Their ability to adapt to these extremes is part of why use of antibacterial soaps and disinfectants should be discouraged, as these concoctions just spur mutations and more resilient bacteria. There is also the concern that anti-bacterials do nothing to strengthen our immune response which nature designed. Although some live in extremes, bacteria, as single celled prokaryotes, thrive best where that which they live on, and create, life, is present. They thrive both on dying and living tissue, and much prefer to inhabit warm bodies, such as the human, and other, animals.
Bacteria come in countless numbers, and are so prolific they outnumber tissue cells in most living hosts by about ten times over. That is, your human cells exist in numbers ten times less numerous then do the bacteria which also comprise the entire human organism. There are approximately 500 species of bacteria, known as natural flora in the human body alone. They make vitamins of our food, digest, and help eliminate waste.
Bacteria are essential to recycle all organic matter. They also have the duty of fixing nitrogen from mineral into organic material, making life possible. When a leaf, or a bug dies, its components are transformed by bacteria back into nutrients for more leaves and more animals and insects.
It is confusing to try to regard some bacteria as “good” and some as “bad.” Life depends upon bacteria to remove dead and decaying material, and even bacterial infections have a part in this process. Most of the bacteria in the human body are rendered either benevolent or harmless due to our immune systems. Those which cause diseases are known as pathogens, or pathogenic. They are much larger, generally than a virus, so are often easier to combat with antibiotics and other medicines when an infection occurs.
Bacteria are so numerous it is surprising to even know that there is a word for a single one: bacterium. There are millions even in one tiny drop of saliva. They are also present on dryer regions of our bodies, although for the bacteria these are what we would know as deserts.
They are very hearty and endure in extreme conditions. It is even postulated that bacteria are expected to be some of the few survivors of any nuclear war that exterminated most life on earth. This allows they have what could be regarded as super powers, yet, as the most abundant organisms on earth the Bacteria are very humble in their star status.
