The fact that microbes surround us was discovered by the Dutch scientist Leeuwenhoek. Later, Pasteur was able to establish a connection between them and many diseases. Microbes appeared on Earth among the first and were able to survive perfectly to this day, populating almost every corner of the globe. They are found in the hot vents of volcanoes and in permafrost, in arid deserts and in the waters of the oceans. Moreover, they are perfectly settled in other living organisms and thrive there, sometimes bringing their owner to death.
How were microbes discovered?
Antony Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope and used it to look at things that could not be seen with the naked eye. The year was 1676. Once the inventor decided to find out why pepper tincture burns the tongue, looked at its solution through a microscope and was shocked. In a drop of substance, as if in some fantasy world, hundreds of sticks, balls, spirals, hooks were spinning, sliding, pushing or lying motionless. This is what microbes look like under a microscope. Leeuwenhoek began to examine everything that came across through a microscopeunder the arm, and everywhere he found hundreds of previously unknown creatures, called by him animalcules. The scientist scraped off the plaque from his teeth and also looked at it with the help of the device. As he later wrote, there were more animalcules in the dental plaque than there were inhabitants in the entire Kingdom. These simple studies laid the foundation for a whole science called microbiology (photo of a fungus on bread).
Microbes - who or what?
Microbes is a huge group of the simplest microorganisms, uniting in their ranks non-nuclear creatures (bacteria, archaea), and having a nucleus (fungi). There are countless of them on earth. There are about a million species of bacteria alone. According to a number of characteristics, they are classified as living organisms. Many people are interested in what microbes look like under a microscope. Their appearance is quite diverse. The sizes of microbes range from 0.3 to 750 micrometers (1 micron is equal to a thousandth of a millimeter). In shape, they are round, like a ball (cocci), rod-shaped (bacilli and others), twisted into spirals (spirilla, vibrios), similar to cubes, stars and bagels. Many microbes have flagella and hairs for more successful movement. Most of them are single-celled, but there are also multicellular ones, such as fungi and blue-green algae bacteria (photo of mold bacteria).
Conditions of existence and habitat
Most known microbes today exist in environments with moderately warm temperatures. 40 degrees and above, they can withstand no more than an hour, and atboiling die instantly. Radiation and direct sunlight are also detrimental to them. However, among them there are extreme sportsmen who can withstand even + 400 degrees Celsius! And the bacterium flavobactin lives in the stratosphere, not afraid of either cold or cosmic radiation.
All bacteria respire. Only some need oxygen for this, while others need carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen and other elements. The only thing all microbes need is liquid. If there is no water, even slime will do for them. These are the microorganisms that live in the body of animals and humans. It is estimated that each of us has about 2 kg of microbes. They are in the stomach, intestines, lungs, on the skin, in the mouth. Microbes under the nails are very numerous (this is perfectly visible under a microscope). During the day, we take on many objects with our hands, settling the microbes that are on them on our hands. Ordinary soap destroys most microbes, but under the nails, especially long ones, they linger and multiply successfully (photo of bacteria on the skin).
Food
Microbes, like people, eat proteins, carbohydrates, mineral supplements, fats. Many of them "love" vitamins.
If you look at microbes under a microscope with good magnification, you can see their structure. They have a nucleoid that stores DNA, ribosomes that synthesize proteins from amino acids, and a special membrane. Through it, microbes absorb food. There are autotrophic microbes, assimilating the substances they need from inorganic compounds. There are heterotrophs that can only feed on ready-made organicsubstances. These are well-known yeast, mold, putrefactive bacteria. Human food products are the most desirable environment for them. There are paratrophic microbes that exist only at the expense of the organic matter of other living beings. These include all pathogenic bacteria. The main part of microbes, with the exception of halophiles, cannot exist in an environment with a high s alt concentration. This feature is used when pickling food (photo of gonorrhea bacteria).
Reproduction
Incredibly, some types of microbes have a sexual process, albeit in the most primitive form. It consists in the transfer of hereditary genes from parent cells to offspring. This happens through the contact of the "parents", or the absorption of one by the other. As a result, microbes-"children" inherit the traits of both parents. But most microbes and bacteria reproduce by division using a transverse constriction or by budding. When observing microbes under a microscope, you can see how some of them have a small process (kidney) at one end. It increases rapidly, then separates from the mother's body and begins an independent life. The “mother” microbe in this way can produce up to 4 offspring, then dies (photo of Helicobacter pylori, causes gastrointestinal ulcers, cancer).
How are microbes different from viruses?
Some people think that viruses and microbes are one and the same. But this is wrong. Viruses, being the most numerous form of life, belong to organismsliving only at the expense of others. If we can see microbes under a microscope or even with a magnifying glass, then viruses, which are a hundred times smaller than bacteria, can only be seen with powerful electron microscopes. Every single virus is a parasite that causes disease in humans, plants, animals, and even microbes. The latter are called bacteriophages. There are far more of them on Earth than bacteria. For example, in a spoonful of sea water there are about 250 million of them. Sea water is useful because the bacteria it contains are killed by bacteriophages. Attached to the body of a bacterium, they destroy its shell and penetrate inside. There, viruses begin to produce their own kind, as a result of which the host cell dies. Virusophages do the same. This property is used in medicine in the production of antibiotics (bacteriophages in the photo).
Friend microbes
It's amazing, but only a tenth of our trillions of cells are actually human. The rest belong to bacteria and microbes. This photo of microbes under a microscope represents bifidobacteria. They help us digest food, protect against pathogenic microbes, and produce amino acids. Our gastrointestinal bacteria are of great benefit. However, only as long as their number is strictly balanced. As soon as any bacteria becomes more than necessary, a person develops various diseases, from dysbacteriosis to stomach ulcers.
Sour-milk bacteria, which “make” kefir, cheeses, and yogurt for us, are also useful. Bacteria are also used in the productionwine, yeast, organic herbicides, fertilizers and more.
Our worst enemies
In addition to the "good" microbes, there is a huge army of "bad" - pathogenic. These include the plague bacillus, diphtheria, syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer, etc. There are trillions of “bad” microbes around us. They are everywhere, but there are especially many of them in public places - on handles in public transport, on money, in public toilets. Germs on hands under a microscope, if you look at them after returning from the store, are just swarming. Therefore, hands should be washed frequently, but without fanaticism. It is undesirable to use antibacterial agents, as this leads to dry skin and weakens the immune system.
The microbes on the teeth under the microscope also cause a shocking sight. They get into our mouths with food, with kisses, with breathing. It is difficult to say how many of them are in the oral cavity, if only up to 100 million parasites can be counted on a toothbrush. Especially if the toothbrush is stored in the same room as the toilet. Microbes in the mouth are the culprits of caries, periodontal disease, infectious diseases. You can interfere with their activity by regularly brushing your teeth and tongue, and after each meal - by rinsing your mouth with bactericidal preparations.
