Are Human Beings Organisms Or Living Ecosystems? 397
Hugh Pickens writes "Every human body harbors about 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering human cells 10 to one. There's been a growing consensus among scientists that bacteria are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. 'Human beings are not really individuals; they're communities of organisms,' says microbiologist Margaret McFall-Ngai. 'This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease.' Recently, for example, evidence has surfaced that obesity may well include a microbial component. Jeffrey Gordon's lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published findings that lean and obese twins — whether identical or fraternal — harbor strikingly different bacterial communities that are not just helping to process food directly; they actually influence whether that energy is ultimately stored as fat in the body. Last year, the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project to characterize the role of microbes in the human body, a formal recognition of bacteria's far-reaching influence, including their contributions to human health and certain illnesses. William Karasov, a physiologist and ecologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that the consequences of this new approach will be profound. 'We've all been trained to think of ourselves as human,' says Karasov, adding that bacteria have usually been considered only as the source of infections, or as something benign living in the body. Now, Karasov says, it appears 'we are so interconnected with our microbes that anything studied before could have a microbial component that we hadn't thought about.'"
Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Interesting)
So the bacteria in the twins is different... why is it worded in such a way as to imply the different bacteria is the reason that one is obese and the other isn't, instead of the type of bacteria changed because being obese (and the eating that goes along with it) favor one type over the other.
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an obesity apologist (or at least, I don't think I am), but I think it's important to recognize that not everyone who is obese just eats cheeseburgers all day. In fact, my diet is pretty piss poor, but I'm thin. Similarly, I know obese vegetarians.
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been struggling with obesity for some time now. I eat more healthy than many of my slimmer friends and I often work out more, yet I still weigh considerably more.
Does this mean that it's impossible for me to loose weight? No way, I have been exercising more and eating better and I know have been shedding more pounds. It's just frustrating to watch them eat more junk and not work out at all, and remain slim, where as I would balloon :|
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:4, Informative)
This would explain what was previously thought to be genetic obesity. I'm obese, as are most of my mothers family. My father is skinny and eats terrible food.
I eat very healthy and I exercise about 20-30 minutes a day(bike riding or swimming) and yet I still weigh 172 @ 17% body fat. Obviously for some people eating healthy and exercising isn't enough.
Whether its genetics or microbes, I don't really care. It does bother me though that people in general blame obese people for their weight. Maybe in a lot of cases that negative view is warranted, but probably for a lot of other cases like me, it isn't laziness.
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It is easy for people with a high metabolism to not be an obesity apologist. Because they are not suffering from the problem. I am a tad overweight myself and I always have to think about what I am eating all the time, for everything I eat. I know people who just have a high metabolism and are very thin and eats 3 to 4 times the calories I do with the same level of exercise. While If I break the rules just a little bit the pounds come right back.
I see it much like the people who have been born in a Rich Fa
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No, you don't, unless they're on speed or something. I guarantee you're counting something wrong, probably everything. Most likely you're underestimating your own calorie intake. You're probably overestimating theirs, too, and getting exercise levels wrong.
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Nice, so you are saying he is fat AND stupid?
That's like adding injury to an insult.
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Metabolism is complicated, but there's only so much variation possible. For one person to have a metabolism 3 to 4 times more efficient than someone else's (without the second person having an obvious problem) isn't possible.
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Informative)
It's how much energy you consume vs how much you use which decide if you get fatter, stay the same or thinner.
Not the quality of the food.
10000 kcals of spinach and you will most likely get more fat.
500 kcals from chocolate and you'd lose weight.
Not exactly. It's not how much energy you consume, but how much energy you gain out of it. Given the right ecosystem in your bowels, you might be able to process 100% of that choccolate-energy, but only 10% of that spinach-energy.
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Right. Frankly, I'm tired of people clinging to the old wives tale that it's a simple equation of [number of calories in food eaten] - [number of calories expended in exercise] = [number of calories stored as fat]. It sounds nice, and gives you all the reason you want to hate on the fatties, but it flies in the face of lots of good science.
Just to stay really basic, we know that some food takes more work to digest than others. But even ignoring that, it's been shown pretty conclusively (and you'll notic
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Insightful)
Newton's laws of gravity are not really right either. They didn't know about relativity back then. But Newton's laws are are good enough approximations for things ordinary people are doing in their day.
Same thing goes for how to lose weight or avoid being fat. Eating fewer calories and burning more calories by exercising isn't the complete picture. Some folks have genetic predispositions for either high or low metabolisms. Some build muscle easier than others. And now we find out that some folks have different microbial components that can influence this.
But none of that changes the basic advice you should give people, which is if you want to be fit (or at least not fat), then eat right and exercise regularly.
This isn't "hating on the fatties". If you let people incorrectly believe that "my genes made me fat", while it may make some folks feel less guilty, it also undermines their confidence in their own ability to get healthy. It's in nobody's interest to make fat people feel like being fat is just their lot in life, rather than an obstacle they could overcome with hard work and persistence.
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But it's healthier energy! ;-)
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:4, Informative)
It's how much energy you consume vs how much you use which decide if you get fatter, stay the same or thinner.
That is plain wrong. It is how much energy of the amount you consume is processed that decides whether you're obese.
And I can prove it: When under stress from work, I tend to eat very little. I usually gain weight during that period of time. In contrast, whenever I have a vacation of more than one week where I am indeed relaxing while stuffing my face with food (e.g. Christmas), I usually tend to lose weight.
This phenomenon is not unique either. Studies have been conducted (at reputable universities like Harvard, mind) that came to the conclusion that the amount and type of food is not directly linked to obesity.
Again, for those who understand German I'd recommend "Esst doch endlich normal" by Udo Pollmer.
He has collected many references (with sources mentioned) to studies that show more correlation between levels of cortisol and obesity than fat or sugar.
Since I have made observations that agree with this theory, I tend to agree with it as well.
Also, I don't quite understand your comment about omnivores. Are you saying we are or we are not omnivores?
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me give you an example. Right after most people eat their heart rate and metabolic response drops, often they feel a bit less energetic and alert, and their body switches "modes" in how it burns energy, usually burning less and storing more at this point. However my body is different. When I eat my heart rate and metabolic response increases by anywhere from 20 beats per minute to 60 bpm. I get warmer, become more alert and more energized.
During that period immediately following eating I can usually exercise longer than other times and not feel tired at all. But ironically this doesn't mean that I am skinny. In fact I am obese. My body stores energy from everything and is VERY efficient at squeezing every last bit of energy and nutrition out of food. My best friend by contrast is skinny and would collapse if he at the same amount of calories that I do (I currently average between 1500 - 2000 calories a day). He has to eat at least twice as much as I do just to function. His digestive system is highly inefficient and his heart rate and metabolic response drops off after eating.
Now another thing that research has shown is that if you spread out your calories across 5 meals in a day you will burn more calories and store less than when eating the same number of calories in 3 or less meals in a day. This technique is used by many to help them lose weight to great effect.
So giving some blanket statements about getting fat or thin just don't apply. It really varies from person to person as to what things effect what people.
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Yes, 1% of the population has a medtial condition that causes them to be overweight.
[citation needed]
Oh wait.... you could perhaps just read the SUMMARY to find out that it may be 1% with that medical condition PLUS X PERCENT WITH A MICROBIOLOGICAL CONDITION.
That was the research result that whole news was about!
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Calories out being very important too - you could be eating peanut butter, potato chips and soda all day and be getting thinner if you're doing a lot of manual labour or exercise. Michael Phelps was taking in something like 12000 calories a day (about 5 times more than they say the average guy should eat per day) while training for the olympics, though that is obviously an extreme example.
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I remember reading about how someone who got their appendix removed later got sick and was unable to digest their food due to lack or non-existent bacteria in their intestines.
It was suspected that the human appendix contains bacteria to help "reboot" the digestive track. So the cure was for the patient to ingest feces I know!) from a healthy person to reboot the digestive track. It worked!
(Sorry I couldn't find the link to the article)
After reading this and this article one could only deduce that y
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... why is it worded in such a way...
Mostly because it wasn't thought through, I suspect. Recent research seems to indicate that gut bacteria have a large influence on things like immune system, ability to process nutrients and similar, so it seems that having a certain kind bacteria can make it difficult to lose rsp. gain weight. And of course, what we eat will influence what bacteria get established in our gut too. It may be a valid corollary from these observations, that if one were to completely change one's diet from the things that favo
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Cause and effect, effect and cause... too often we can't tell which is which. Not to mention that one sample (or a handful) does not constitute anything a serious researcher would take, well, serious.
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Absolutely! I for one reject this studies' thinly veiled attack on the hegemony of genetic determinism!
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I think my life has been determined by garden genomes.
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what your point was, but this wouldn't refute genetic determinism; it just says that the genes determining "you" include those of bacteria.
Incidentally, I don't understand what's so new about this insight. I read a book published in 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett (a philosopher rather than a biologist so he was only drawing on what was long-established consensus at the time). It described the view of the body as an ecosystem and suggested that human cells were like "altruistic versions of ant cells" since human cells share even more genetic material (100%) with their neighbors.
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Right, but most of these shambling eco-systems only considered base human cells. This is article is expanding that concept to include all the additional flora and fauna living in/on us.
Is similar to only focusing on a stand of aspens while ignoring all the other life intertwined with it.
When you get right down to it, life is a big dance. Or we're all just was stars have found to look back at themselves.
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Informative)
why is it worded in such a way as to imply the different bacteria is the reason that one is obese and the other isn't, instead of the type of bacteria changed because being obese
IIRC there have been animal studies (mice I think) where changing the intestinal bacteria lead to changes in obesity. I don't have an article cite, but I read about it in Science News about a year ago. So it's not simply a correlation that supports this theory.
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Perhaps because they've done the studies that show calorie intake is actually wildly different according to the bacteria present, regardless of the food eaten. Seriously, go read the articles attached to the original slashdot story, they're fascinating reading.
I for one am watching this with interest since it's the first research I've seen that adequately explains why somebody like myself can eat without putting weight on, while other have to carefully monitor their intake.
I eat absolute garbage, in quanti
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why is it worded in such a way as to imply the different bacteria is the reason that one is obese and the other isn't, instead of the type of bacteria changed because being obese
Probably from centuries of parasite research, despite the official tone of the article being against those beliefs. "everyone knows" that given one twin with a tapeworm, and another twin without a tapeworm, the tapeworm twin is thinner because the tapeworm turns food into more tapeworm, that would otherwise turn into human fat or energy for exercise or whatever. No great stretch to apply those observations to bacteria.
Since some very high percentage by weight of fecal matter (uh, for the uneducated, that
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I'm pretty sure Futurama made this discovery some years ago when Fry ate the sandwich from the vending machine in the intergalactic truck stop rest room.
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Random thought - I was just reading about the efficacy of phage therapy for wounds that were not responding to antibiotics.
Re:Obesity & Bacteria (Score:5, Informative)
Do antibiotics wipe out everything in person's gut, or is there enough left over that people get recolonized with the same set of microbes they had before taking the antibiotics? Also, are the bacteria that might influence weight gain susceptible to common antibiotics that wipe out most other bacteria in the gut? The summary had a link [npr.org] to an article on the fat bacteria, and it contained the following.
"The issue, then was to determine which came first: the fat, or the bacteria. To find out, the lab took mice that had never been exposed to any bacteria, whose guts were totally germ-free. Half of them got bacteria taken from skinny mice. The other half got bacteria from fat mice."
"Both groups put on body fat. But the mice that received bacteria from obese donors gained more fat over the course of the experiment."
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I don't recall where I read it, but I distinctly remember reading something along the lines that the appendix serves as a resevoir of gut bacteria, and that it replenishes normal gut bacteria after episodes of horrific diarrhea, for example.
I don't know if the appendix is sufficiently protected from antibiotic dispersion in the gut
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Ah, an investment banker. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)
As in the old jokes, where two planets meet:
- How's going?
- Bad... I got Mankind.
- Had it also. Not a big problem though, it goes away.
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Cancer... a part of a body gone nuts, a part that once provided a valuable service, then turned berserk, harming the body and only serving itself anymore and worst of all, a self-serving body that just don't know when to quit...
I'd say the content industry.
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Yeah, but attempting to force people to make an arbitrary and meaningless choice about what humans "REALLY" are is the best way to stimulate page views and comments from stupid people, while driving smart people off to wherever it is that smart people go (if you know, please tell me!)
In every case that we know of there is more than one way to usefully carve up the universe into conceptual chunks. Stupid people think that one of these must be the One True Way, which is, well, stupid. The universe is what i
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Arguably, we could say the same thing about Earth itself (guess who's cancer?)
Chimpanzees...
Those things are plain old evil.
Let me be first (Score:5, Funny)
Star Trek... (Score:2)
There has to be a Star Trek episode here somewhere....
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No, it was a Futurama episode in season 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasites_Lost [wikipedia.org]
Not just "bacteria" (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps these are the midicloriens we have been looking for. Try to speak to them with your mind and see if you can make things move... (it only works for me in the bathroom when my concentration is at its highest and the accoustics are at their best)
Also, this brings another question to mind as well. Have our snooty English teachers been correct in using "we" in weird places? "How are we feeling today? Did we do our homework?" The ramifications are... spooky.
Finally, let's tell ALL the germaphobes out there! This hand-washing nut-cases are annoying! We can either break them of their phobias or finally kill them. Either way, their irrational fears will bug me no further. ("Clean" has it's place, but primarily when it has to do with food and equipment!)
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"Clean" has it's place, but primarily when it has to do with food and equipment!
Keyboards are not meant to be eaten!
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Its a stupid distinction (Score:5, Insightful)
While the study of our relationship with the bacteria and other microbes that live inside us is interesting and valid its kinda dumb to talk about ourselves as ecosystems. We are another life form, that has a symbiotic relationship with those microbes in a larger ecosystem.
We don't need words like symbiotic if we are going to think of ourselves as an ecosystem. Also just about any animal or plant made of more than a few cells is going to be an ecosystem under this implied definition. I am not sure how exactly we want to define ecosystem but something a little more complex than "any thing which something lives inside" seems appropriate.
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its kinda dumb to talk about ourselves as ecosystems
The dumbest part is everyone knows the only really bad part about exterminating a distinct species is listening to the environmentalists complain. The sun still rises on the rest of the living world, despite the T.Rex and the passenger pigeon being gone. Some other species steps into the empty niche. Maybe a change we like, maybe a change we don't like, but none the less life goes on mostly uninterrupted. For example, within our lifetimes, cod will be extinct, and I'll be sad, but I'll just fry somethin
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While the study of our relationship with the bacteria and other microbes that live inside us is interesting and valid its kinda dumb to talk about ourselves as ecosystems. We are another life form, that has a symbiotic relationship with those microbes in a larger ecosystem.
We don't need words like symbiotic if we are going to think of ourselves as an ecosystem. Also just about any animal or plant made of more than a few cells is going to be an ecosystem under this implied definition. I am not sure how exact
Applies to brain cells as well? (Score:3, Funny)
This must be why I hear those voices in my head.
"Eat that donut"
"Don't eat it!"
"Eat it!"
"I am bored"
"Natalie Portman"
I am joking.. or am I?
Re:Applies to brain cells as well? (Score:4, Funny)
9 out of ten voices in my head tel me that I'm not insane.
The 10th just keeps on humming the Tetris-tune...
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"Eat that donut"
"Don't eat it!"
"Eat it!"
"I am bored"
"Natalie Portman"
Burma Shave is Natalie Portman!
Made of cake (Score:2, Funny)
did you see that this is all based around an obesity study? this has to be the BEST reason-why-i'm-fat yet!
"it's not me, it's the entire living eco-system of which i am comprised. and my DNA. and it's glandular. and i'm big boned."
i think most of the people in the study were made of cake.
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For the people are still alive. (http://www.mindonfire.com/2008/10/13/music-monday-still-alive/, the closing song from Portal.)
So: too much cleaning is bad (Score:2)
Just the excuse that I have been looking for to avoid having to hoover the carpets!
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Given a few years after installation, carpets are an entire ecosystem, themselves!
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You read too much Carpet People [wikipedia.org]!
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Given a few years after installation, carpets are an entire ecosystem, themselves!
Indeed. Carpets, unlike proper rugs which can be taken out and cleaned, are pretty disgusting. I'd suggest to the OP that if he has carpets, he hoover them as often as possible if ripping them out isn't feasible.
On the other hand, if he wants to do himself and the world around him a favour, he might consider refraining from using or buying any consumer product that has the word "antibacterial" on the label.
Once upon a time i
Re:So: too much cleaning is bad (Score:5, Funny)
Just the excuse that I have been looking for to avoid having to hoover the carpets!
Is that what women are calling taking a bath nowdays?
Point of view (Score:2)
We don't have to reject one viewpoint in favour of the other - it is equally valid to consider a human, to take some random examples, a torus, a blob of slimy water designed to carry DNA around, or a highly organised colony of specialised eukariotes.
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Consider a spherical human...
Good Germs Bad Germs (Score:5, Informative)
I just read Good Germs Bad Germs by Jessica Snyder Sachs, a fascinating, accessible and up-to-date account of roughly the same subject matter. Will change your view on bacteria forever.
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Germs-Bad-Survival-Bacterial/dp/0809050633 [amazon.com]
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Both. (Score:2)
Human being are individuals. They have a genome (well, actually, two, 'cause of the mitochondria), they evolved, they form a population of interbreeding animals.
That said, they provide an ecosystem to a large number of microbial species, some of which are symbionts, some are parasites, some can be both. In general, we cannot live without our symbionts, and our symbionts are depending on us.
All that isn't news. This perspective on a human individual has been here for decades. What is new is that with 2nd gen [byu.edu]
All our base are belong to them? (Score:2)
Do you think we can pass responsibilities to our occupants?
Since bacteria outnumber us ten to one, do you think they see us as oppressors, since our bodies don't seem to be a functioning democracy?
Are the bacteria responsible for our preemptive strikes on the cookie jars and other resources found in the kitchen?
"Boss, I can't come to work, my bacteria are on strike".
"Don't touch me, I'm a protected ecosystem!"
Sounds like "LIves of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas 1978 (Score:5, Informative)
Yogurt (Score:3, Interesting)
radiation (Score:3, Informative)
Makes sense. I read somewhere that one of the reasons medium/high doses of radiation kill you is all the helpful bacteria in your digestive system are killed, leaving you unable to process nutrients.
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I read somewhere that one of the reasons medium/high doses of radiation kill you is all the helpful bacteria in your digestive system are killed, leaving you unable to process nutrients.
Well, that and the internal burns, shredded DNA, denatured proteins, and general nastiness that results from your insides being subjected to bursts of concentrated energy.
Viruses, too (Score:5, Interesting)
A recent program on NatGeo (Explorer?) hypothesizes that viruses are also a key part of human evolution.
The "junk DNA" that we all have is likely the result of viruses.
They've also discovered that viruses in the wild actually quite easily jump from species to species, too.
In one of the experiments, they found a large amount of a certain virus in the womb of a sheep during pregnancy. When inoculated against the virus, the pregnancy would not complete.
Very interesting theory.
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They've also discovered that viruses in the wild actually quite easily jump from species to species, too.
Some do. Rabies appears to infect most mammals, but that's an incredible range for a virus, and there is one virus that can at least tolerate being in a host from a completely different kingdom, don't remember the name of it but it can live in aphids and some plant species (also not sure which one it prefers). As I understand it, most viruses seem to stay within their host species though, it's typically a very lucrative niche. I'd guess it depends on the specific virus, some because of their mechanisms a
I'd go even further... (Score:2)
I view myself (Score:4, Funny)
As a series of tubes.
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As a series of tubes.
You mean you're not a big truck??
Are we living ecosystems? (Score:4, Funny)
Or are we dancer?
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Entertaining related TED talk (Score:3, Informative)
Humans (just) human idea also referred to by Bonnie Bassler in excellent talk here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html [ted.com]
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For some reason, /. removed the '\ne' character before "(just)".
Or? (Score:2)
Since when is there a difference? :)
It's as stupid as asking if the whole planet is an organism or a living ecosystem? They are both too.
Because fractality is a basic rule of nature.
I am envious at editors and reporters. Their job is so easy. Take something homogenous. Use two different words for it. Or two different views on it. And form a false dichotomy out of it.
And you got your controversy. Stir up some dust with it. And your job is done.
Is Slashdot an organism or an ecosystem? (Score:2)
A new way to assess superiority. (Score:2)
I am obviously a superior human, because I have bacteria type r2-d2. All other humans with that bacteria type should join me, and then we can enslave those inferior humans who only have the thx-1138 bacteria type.
A whole new kind of health quackery. (Score:2)
Which one of us will be first to make the web site to sell shakes made of ground up weeds and household plants that claim to balance the bacteria in your blood? I'm sure that shark cartiledge will be useful for this, along with rhino horn powder.
100 trillion mitochrondia too (Score:4, Interesting)
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you mean "midichlorians."
Though I have to admin, my worms make me much smarter than before.
DNA shot gun analysis is a powerful analysis tool (Score:4, Interesting)
Shotgun DNA is a "similar, but different approach". They first map every piece of DNA in every microbe (but in pieces). Then they look for a few key sequences somewhat conserved among species, and note minor differences. This distribution of differences gives a count of species and relatives amounts of each. Later on they may connect these to actual microbe types.
After reading this (Score:3, Funny)
After reading through this I can no longer tolerate a sanctioned policy of genocide against an indiginous life form. Thus all bacteria and viruses must be protected like any other form of life. In our own personal ecosystem the use of weapons of mass destruction against said bacteria and viruses must stop! Save the bacteria, whales, dolphins, etc.) As delicate as the ecosystem is we must prevent mass extinction and stop polluting the ecosystem with toxic medication and antibiotics!
Oh man the Earth worshippers are gonna run with this one... Gaia has a disease...
How long till the last shread of reason is lost? Humans are machines, nothing more made up of lots of parts. You are just as worthless as a laser printer because you are no different. There is no free will, just complex biochemical reactions guided by DNA and environment. No love, just an interaction of mating protocols, chemistry, and complex algorithms running in your advanced CPU. YOu illusion of conciousness is noting more then a product of random sequences of programs surviving the evolutionary tread mill.
Scifi got it wrong, the machines do take over, we mearly give up and turn into machines... No wonder the more "advanced" we get, the cheaper life becomes and the more we treat one another like machines...
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Solution to Obesity (Score:3, Funny)
Custom Gut Ecology (Score:3, Funny)
So where is the pricey SoHo boutique I can go to to be cleaned out and re-populated with an exclusive culture grown by Natalie Portman?
I know the economy is bad, but the bio venture capitalists are really slipping if this isn't an option by now.
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"One visit, and now I walk around with a shit-eating grin."
Not so much living IN humans as living ON them (Score:3, Interesting)
I kind of object to the notion that these bacteria are living inside us as if they are parts of our bodies. As I understand it, the great majority are in our guts; most of the remainder are in skin and mucous membranes that are somewhat exposed to the outside.
The gut is not exactly part of the body. Topologically it has often been noted that the human body is like a tube or torus (a doughnut shape). Yes, there are several sphincters and other openings that can close off the gut, starting with the mouth and ending with the anus. But they open sometimes and they do offer passageway between the outside world and the inside. The gut is more like the skin in terms of how the body distinguishes the external world from its internal environment. It patrols its internals rather vigorously and attempts to destroy bacteria. "Outside" bacteria are tolerated, there is no immune system active outside the body.
So there is still a very significant distinction between those cells which are part of our body, and those cells, including these vast numbers of bacteria, that are outside our body. The gut doesn't really count.
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Guess you have a low count, since you didn't foresee how lame and overused your joke was.
Re:Body is the Vessel for the Soul (Score:5, Funny)
pH fail. (or "pHail" as the cool kids are saying these days)
Re:Body is the Vessel for the Soul (Score:5, Funny)
I see sleeping through fourth-grade science's done wonders for you...
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While I have to admit that the grandparent comment by the AC is pretty incoherent, the intent could have been "maintaining the correct pH balance by staying slightly more alkaline than the average person who takes in too many acidic foods and drinks, such as lemon juice in water." Still wrong, but at a higher grade level.
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From said website:
Peace On Earth?
Preservation Of Essence?
I knew it! Bacterial colonies in my body are a dirty commie plot!
Re:Head, shoulders knees and toes (Score:5, Funny)
-- Doctor, I can't stop sneezing!
-- You have the Sneazles, said the doctor, after having a quick look.
-- What about my bad feet?
-- A common case of Toelio, said the dismissive doctor.
The man dropped his pants
-- and this?
-- Ah, the doctor exclaimed, the Smallcox!
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You found it!
After reading this and this article one could only deduce that you could make a fat person thin by forcibly causing the same conditions and using feces from a thin person.
Re:WTF. Why is this any kind of breakthrough? (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternative medicine has been aware of this fact (that the microorganisms that live in our bodies are a normal part of our physiology) for ages.
First, modern medicine has been "aware" that they were there and had beneficial effects for decades also. There are two things you're missing:
1. The discovery is not that they help digest food and nutrients, but they might help determine how your body uses it
2. The difference between "aware of this fact" and actually doing a reproducible study to help determine whether this "fact" is true.
My only real problem with alternative medicine is that it doesn't care what is true, just what we believe to be true.