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Do you know that there are more bacteria cells in your body (10 times as many, in fact) than there are human cells?
Do you know that the mass of all the bacteria on Earth exceeds the mass of all other biological systems put together?
Did you know that bacteria don't age and die? If they die, it's because they are predated or killed by some external force, process or chemical?
Bacteria are one of the earliest life forms, perhaps the second form of life on earth. They are, actually, what all higher forms of life descend from. Including us. It was bacteria, after all, which combined with mitochondria and began to form multicellular organisms. And they started sexual reproduction. The rest. as they say ....
The thing is, bacteria gave up what is, essentially, immortality for sex. And sex led to evolution. And cell death. And aging. And death of the larger organism.
The funny thing is that bacteria now (and always have) dominate the Earth. They're everywhere. We could not live without them - around us. And IN us. And yet, they can kill us. And often do. I guess you could say, we live at their pleasure. They dominate us and our world.
Ndinombethe.
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3 comments:
Well, THERE'S a pleasant picture to paint on a Saturday night, Lou! Thanks.
They're like eensy weency dictators.
And I totally understand giving up immortality for sex. I cannot imagine living forever without ever having sex....
Wow... this is one of those posts that you have to turn over once or twice in your mind to get around... Consider that all we are... what we are... is a bacteria..? A vessel for carrying something that we consider "dirty"..?
In the first Matrix, Agent Smith compares humanity to a bacteria... and I remember thinking how right he was... of all the known organisms that does not fit within the biosphere, the place of man certainly is questionable in it... without many things, our life span would be much shorter... and maybe that is how it is supposed to be...
Interesting.
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