Question: What is bactiria?

Emma Trantham answered on 2 Jul 2012:

One of my favourite subjects!

Bacteria are living organisms that are made up of a single cell and so are very tiny (thousands could fit onto the full stop at the end of this sentence). They have DNA, just like we do, but they don’t reproduce sexually like us (so it doesn’t take a mum and a dad) – they reproduce by splitting themselves to create 2 exact copies.

Some bacteria are harmful – they cause diseases that range from mild (they cause some throat infections) to really serious (a species of bacteria caused the Black Death). Most bacteria don’t harm us at all and some are even beneficial.

Did you know that there are 10x more bacterial cells on and in your body than there are human cells in it?! Most of those bacteria live either on your skin or in your gut. And before you run off to give your hands a good wash – most of those bacteria help us in one way or another (although some of the ways they help us are not quite clear yet – we just know that without them we can get sick etc.)

Bacteria in fact are everywhere – we even use them to help us make food. Yoghurts are made using bacteria (and in fact some of them are sold on the basis that they have ‘friendly’ or ‘good’ bacteria in them that are supposed to help our guts.)

Is there anything else you want to know about bacteria (because I do love talking about them!)?