The count of bacteria on our planet vastly outnumbers all other life forms combined. One scientific source pegs them around five million trillion trillion strong.
Placed end to end, earth's bacteria would stretch from here to the edge of the visible universe, about ten billion light years away.
You will find bacteria virtually everywhere you look. That includes in your body. You likely know bacteria as invaders, causers of disease. Pharmaceutical companies and television advertising promote that understanding. It's only partly true.
We couldn't live without bacteria--the good kind. Our bodies are really symbionts, part human cells and part bacteria. Our body cells provide the living environment and nutrition for the good bacteria, while they provide protection from many diseases for us.
Those television commercials where graphics show bacteria in the mouth, with actors in white coats making grimacing faces to show how ugly and dangerous the bacteria are deceive us. The mouth is the first line of defence against disease. Good bacteria in the mouth hunt down and kill the bad bacteria before they get any further and acquire a foothold. Those antibacterial mouthwashes kill bad bacteria, as advertised. They also kill far more good and beneficial bacteria whose primary function is to kill the bad ones. Good bacteria in the mouth always vastly outnumber the bad ones, except when both are killed off by antibacterial mouthwashes.
Most cases of bad breath--halitosis--result from dead bacteria and partly broken down food particles on the back of the tongue. Just as you blow your nose when you have a cold to remove the detritus of the battles in your body of good bacteria against bad, you should brush your tongue--especially the back of the tongue that gets little activity--to remove rotting matter.
Mints, gum and eating food either mask problems on the back of the tongue or delay their giving off a bad odour until the mouth is quiet during the night. Morning breath is usually caused by food and dead bacteria rotting away on the back of the tongue during the night. Brush the tongue before bed at night and your breath will likely be much fresher in the morning.
Removing bacteria in the mouth that have given their lives to save yours is like taking out the trash. What the trash was originally was good and beneficial, but there comes a time to get rid of what is no longer useful before it causes other problems. Do that with a brush or scraper, not with an antibacterial mouthwash weapon of mass destruction.
I used to get horrified reactions from readers when I wrote that there are likely more bacteria in our bodies than native cells. Recent estimates based on lab research suggest that bacteria in our bodies outnumber our body's cells by a factor of ten.
Bacteria are the oldest known life form. They have been on earth for 3.5 billion years, since shortly after the surface of our planet solidified.
They were the source of mystery, speculation and superstition until 1674 when Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek invented the first microscope and spotted the first "animacules." Some were microbes (including bacteria), some spermatozoa and some blood corpuscles.
Some varieties of bacteria are remarkably adept at reproduction. They can go from birth to being capable of reproduction themselves in ten minutes. A single bacterium could theoretically be the progenitor of more than one billion offspring within five hours. They don't reproduce sexually, so they don't require recovery time. They don't seem to require sleep or rest. They're just full time busy bodies.
There may be more varieties of bacteria as yet unidentified than we have listed of all other known species of life. In 2003, geneticist J. Craig Ventner travelled several oceans of the world scooping up water samples from the surfaces. On examination of his water samples he found more than one million bacterial genes never seen before.
Ventner is leading a team that plans to build a bacterium from scratch. His first created "life form" is under study now.
Why do we need to create more bacteria when we have so many we haven't even found? Remember how some bacteria live so well in our bodies, killing the bad guys that invade us? Some new bacteria could be designed to kill cancer cells, for example. Other researchers are genetically modifying viruses for similar purposes. Some day, curing your newly identified cancer or tuberculosis or cholera may require nothing more than getting a needle in the doctor's office.
Bacteria are fast. E. coli, one of the feared kind but also one of the varieties being genetically modified to help us, can travel 25 times it's own length in one second.That would be like a race horse galloping at 135 miles per hour (216 kph).
Bacteria have been with us and in us for so long that some have been incorporated into our bodies. Mitochondria, an organelle with enzymes that power every cell in our bodies, descended from bacteria. Stretches of our own DNA are virtually identical to the DNA of certain bacteria and viruses. Bacteria may be responsible for allowing our bodies to incorporate virus DNA into our own.
Science is totally rethinking the use of antibiotics to cure our problems. At one time given out freely by doctors to address patient problems they couldn't figure out, including viral infections that cannot be addressed by antibiotics, antibiotics are now recognized as having been abused and misused, resulting in the so-called superbug bacteria that no antibiotic can touch.
Clostridium difficile (better known as C. difficile or C. diff), the terror of some modern hospitals, moves in and takes over a body when its natural defences have been destroyed by antibiotics or immune system failure. It causes painful inflammation in the gut, diarrhea and even death.
Bacteria are so good at adapting to avoid the effects of antibiotics--thus gaining the title superbug--that one superbug bacteria known as MRSA killed 19,000 Americans in 2005 alone.
Floating bacteria have the unusual characteristic of being the "germ" around which moisture collects in the air. One theory, as yet unproven, recommends that bacteria be sprayed onto clouds to "seed" them, causing rain in areas of drought. The problem with testing the theory is that many people believe that all bacteria are bad, a belief they learned from deceptive television commercials.
Bacteria are amazingly resilient. They have been found two miles down in a South African gold mine, living off energy given off by radioactive rocks. Deinococcus radiodurans can survive 10,000 times as much radiation as humans, making it a prime subject for study about cleaning up nuclear waste. Other varieties have been found under two kilometres of ice in the Antarctic and revived, having laid under the ice for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Australian scientists have discovered that Ralstonia metallidurans can turn gold dissolved in a liquid into solid gold nuggets.
Bacteria may even one day not just power, but be the computer you use. As single-purposed and diligent as they are, they can follow directions without close supervision. E. coli has already been assembled as part of a computer, to produce a bull's-eye on command.
No word yet on whether the bacteria will run Windows or Linux.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to know what kids need while they are growing, not just what they should be taught to get good jobs as adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
[Primary source: Discover, December 2008]
Showing posts with label gold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gold. Show all posts
Friday, January 09, 2009
Friday, February 22, 2008
Gold: Much Different Than You Think
Gold doesn't do much, it just sits there looking pretty. Not its beauty so much as its inertness gives gold a large part of the value we place on the mineral.
Gold isn't unique to earth by any means. Our moon, which in the early days after formation of our planet was smashed off it and hardened to become a satellite of its mom, is expected to have large gold deposits.
In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that the asteroid Eros holds more gold than has ever been mined on earth. It's a bit out of reach so far.
The largest deposits of gold on our own planet--estimated around ten billion tons of it--are in the rock beneath our oceans. However, no one has yet figured out a way to get that gold out cheaply.
Archeologists believe that gold may have been the first mineral ever mined on earth. Decorative gold pieces have been found in Bulgaria that date back 6000 years, roughly the same time period as the Stone Age.
Going back to the seventh century BCE, gold wire was used to attach fake teeth to those who could afford it. Gold fillings for teeth date back at least to the 16th century, likely to ancient Egypt.
The Inca Empire had one of the largest collections of gold known. When King Atahualpa promised to fill a room 22 feet by 18 feet and as high as he could reach with gold as a ransom to his Spanish captors, they accepted. The Spanish got the gold, but killed the king anyway.
Gold mining got started in the United States after Conrad Reed found a lump of it on his father's North Carolina farm in 1799. The family used the 17 pound lump as a doorstop for three years before a local jeweler spotted it and gave the Reeds $3.50 for it, about one-thousandth of its true value.
Conrad caught on--the lump would be valued around $100,000 today--and decided to begin the first gold mine in the US.
Despite the claim made in the old James Bond thriller Goldfinger that covering a body could cause death through "skin suffocation," it's not true. Actress Shirley Eaton had everything but a small section on her abdomen covered with gold paint. Viewers didn't see the bare patch, but sight of the rest of her covered in gold spurred the imaginations of many young men.
Gold can be pounded to a sheet five millionths of an inch thick. One ounce of it has been drawn into gold wire 50 miles (80 km) long and five micrometers thick, one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.
Because it's virtually indestructible, it's estimated that 80 percent of the gold ever mined is still being used.
Gold has been used to wrap around the Apollo lunar lander and as eye protection on the visor shields of astronauts. It's used as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, via injection. Doctors don't understand yet why it provides an anti-inflammatory effect.
Alchemy is the name given to the study of how to change base metals into gold. Though alchemists from the days of Shakespeare on failed to produce gold, the Soviets actually created it from lead in one of their nuclear reactors. Sort of. Using radiation, they were able to transform lead nuclei into gold. Too costly for too little of the precious metal though.
Though the mining of gold impacts the environment badly by sending cyanide into waterways and nitrogen and sulphur dioxide into the air, the final product is environmentally green. Thin gold sheets cover the windows of some office and apartment buildings to reflect the sun's heat in summer and hold heat inside in winter. That's why the glass seems to be gold coloured.
Australian researchers have found microorganisms that actually consume trace amounts of gold, then poop it back out as larger nuggets. Mining companies want to use the method to replace cyanide.
The USA has the world's largest hoard of gold bricks, but India has the largest amount of gold because of its many decorative uses. About 20 percent of finished gold around today is used as decorative thread in Indian saris.
At this point, finding new sources of gold takes enormous resources. Asteroids, the moon and the ocean floor are too costly to mine. And Indian ladies are decidedly reluctant to be de-frocked just to produce more gold trinkets.
If only someone had thought to ask Goldfinger how he accumulated his gold fortune.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book for adults to learn how their problems of today began and how to help their children avoid having the same or other life problems.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
(Primary source: Discover, December 2007)
Gold isn't unique to earth by any means. Our moon, which in the early days after formation of our planet was smashed off it and hardened to become a satellite of its mom, is expected to have large gold deposits.
In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that the asteroid Eros holds more gold than has ever been mined on earth. It's a bit out of reach so far.
The largest deposits of gold on our own planet--estimated around ten billion tons of it--are in the rock beneath our oceans. However, no one has yet figured out a way to get that gold out cheaply.
Archeologists believe that gold may have been the first mineral ever mined on earth. Decorative gold pieces have been found in Bulgaria that date back 6000 years, roughly the same time period as the Stone Age.
Going back to the seventh century BCE, gold wire was used to attach fake teeth to those who could afford it. Gold fillings for teeth date back at least to the 16th century, likely to ancient Egypt.
The Inca Empire had one of the largest collections of gold known. When King Atahualpa promised to fill a room 22 feet by 18 feet and as high as he could reach with gold as a ransom to his Spanish captors, they accepted. The Spanish got the gold, but killed the king anyway.
Gold mining got started in the United States after Conrad Reed found a lump of it on his father's North Carolina farm in 1799. The family used the 17 pound lump as a doorstop for three years before a local jeweler spotted it and gave the Reeds $3.50 for it, about one-thousandth of its true value.
Conrad caught on--the lump would be valued around $100,000 today--and decided to begin the first gold mine in the US.
Despite the claim made in the old James Bond thriller Goldfinger that covering a body could cause death through "skin suffocation," it's not true. Actress Shirley Eaton had everything but a small section on her abdomen covered with gold paint. Viewers didn't see the bare patch, but sight of the rest of her covered in gold spurred the imaginations of many young men.
Gold can be pounded to a sheet five millionths of an inch thick. One ounce of it has been drawn into gold wire 50 miles (80 km) long and five micrometers thick, one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.
Because it's virtually indestructible, it's estimated that 80 percent of the gold ever mined is still being used.
Gold has been used to wrap around the Apollo lunar lander and as eye protection on the visor shields of astronauts. It's used as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, via injection. Doctors don't understand yet why it provides an anti-inflammatory effect.
Alchemy is the name given to the study of how to change base metals into gold. Though alchemists from the days of Shakespeare on failed to produce gold, the Soviets actually created it from lead in one of their nuclear reactors. Sort of. Using radiation, they were able to transform lead nuclei into gold. Too costly for too little of the precious metal though.
Though the mining of gold impacts the environment badly by sending cyanide into waterways and nitrogen and sulphur dioxide into the air, the final product is environmentally green. Thin gold sheets cover the windows of some office and apartment buildings to reflect the sun's heat in summer and hold heat inside in winter. That's why the glass seems to be gold coloured.
Australian researchers have found microorganisms that actually consume trace amounts of gold, then poop it back out as larger nuggets. Mining companies want to use the method to replace cyanide.
The USA has the world's largest hoard of gold bricks, but India has the largest amount of gold because of its many decorative uses. About 20 percent of finished gold around today is used as decorative thread in Indian saris.
At this point, finding new sources of gold takes enormous resources. Asteroids, the moon and the ocean floor are too costly to mine. And Indian ladies are decidedly reluctant to be de-frocked just to produce more gold trinkets.
If only someone had thought to ask Goldfinger how he accumulated his gold fortune.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book for adults to learn how their problems of today began and how to help their children avoid having the same or other life problems.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
(Primary source: Discover, December 2007)
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