Bacteria

Bacteria have been around for a long, long time, much longer than humans have been. In fact, they are the oldest life form on earth. They raise special concerns to scientists due to the fact that they can cause disease and also mutate to resist medicines. Plasmids pass DNA to one another changing the bacteria’s structure, and making each bacterium very individualistic. These resisting strands that are popping up are sometimes untreatable by our antibiotics, causing major future concerns. They have survived a vast range of environments, such as extremes in hot and cold temperature, and extremes in high and low pressure. Only less than one percent of bacteria cause disease, and they can hold many other uses to today’s society. For example, bacteria are used to get the stains out of a shirt.

Bacteria, a prokaryote, is the smallest free living organism on the planet; so small that they are the size of one millionth of a pinhead. They divide to reproduce, called binary fission, and can grow in extremely rapid rates. Humans are born bacteria free, but within hours, a newborn child is covered in microscopic bacteria.

Bacteria’s ability to reproduce so quickly and efficiently has been used for many different reasons, good and bad,