When I was a kid, my parents told me that everyday items are always filled with bacteria, such as banknotes, tabletops, keyboards, smartphones, floor (pick up your fallen food within 5 seconds or it will be infected with bacteria), I grew up told there are millions of bacteria under the fingernails all the time, is this really true? How can they be always there and survive that long if they are on the floor, banknotes etc.? They are living organisms, need to eat something, right? For my thinking there is nothing to eat on the banknotes normally. Can anyone bust this myth or confirm? Thanks in advance.
In: Biology
Bacteria technically are everywhere yes… however there are exceptions. bacteria do need food and what not to multiply and survive so that needs to be present for bacteria to stick around to an area.
The other thing is initial contamination. Some areas that people think are “dirty” for example are actually sterile from bacteria, fungi and viruses, (but not environment pollutants) so like if you have an air purifier in your home that removed airborne bacteria, and you have a high up shelf that’s really dusty..? Chances are it’s sterile from bacteria because bacteria wouldn’t survive there and if it did it likely is just dead (along with the skin cells making up that dust)
bacteria however are actually extremely beneficial to humans and outside of the common bacteria they use in probiotics, it’s actually theorized that the more diverse of bacteria you ingest from stuff like food consumption (IE carrots straight out of the dirt, potatoes, etc) that you will have a healthier immune system to protect against actual bad bacteria like food poisoning, listeria, salmonella etc. AND better digestion.
This theory however also ideally is associated with introducing that bacteria as young as possible (like as a baby) so as the body grows over time, it realizes that that bacteria must be the bacteria it needs to aid in digestion. Of course testing that could an issue because imagine trying to get ethical approval to purposefully have newborns “infected” with different types of bacteria to see if that becomes part of their gut microbiome
Hi!
I’m a data nerd, [look here for some mind blowing dta](https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/all-life-on-earth-chart-weight-plants-animals-pnas)
These masses are in giga tons of carbon to make thinks like mass of water less of the measurement.
The **total mass of humans** on the planet contains 0.06 giga tons of carbon.
**All animals** (including humans) is around 2 giga tons of carbon
**All Plants** is something like 450 GT C. This is by far the biggest group.
After that, **Bacteria are the second biggest group at 79 GT C**
Then Fungi (12 GT C)
Yes.
If you don’t believe me, buy some petri dishes and do swipes of things in your house you think are “clean.”
Bacteria are all around you.
They really are that common.
The other freaky trivia I read somewhere is that nematodes (microscopic worms) are so common that if you to away everything else in the world, you’d still be able to see the outline of the earth
>How can they be always there and survive that long if they are on the floor, banknotes etc.? They are living organisms, need to eat something, right?
Many bacteria can produce spores that can chill out on a surface without any usable resources, waiting for conditions to improve. This is how they manage to survive on surfaces where you wouldn’t expect them.
However, the limiting factor is more water than food. There’s plenty of food for bacteria on a bank note in the form of random grease and grime and things. But there usually isn’t enough water for the bacteria to start growing.
Everyones driven home the point about how the world is coated in a thin layer of bacteria, but one thing that’s important to consider is that only a tiny percentage of them have the potential to ever cause disease, and then an even tinier fraction of that number that are likely to cause you specifically to become ill – many bugs are opportunistic and will only make you ill under very specific circumstances.
Estimates vary wildly, but we can say with confidence that there are at LEAST 1 million, more likely 2-4 million species of bacteria. One study says there could be trillions. There are, at last count, exactly [1503 human pathogens](https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001269). 25% of them have caused less than 3 cases. That means by the most conservative estimate, 0.15% of all bacterial species you’ll encounter could cause disease.
Of course, you’re more *likely* to encounter M. Tuberculosis than some bacteria from a hydrothermal vent in the deep ocean, but I just wanted to show that as a group, bacteria are for the vast vast vast part, harmless.
Bacteria and fungi, or their spores, pretty much cover every surface and grow into every nook and cranny. They are a natural part of the environment, and very few are pathogenic.
Microbes absorb what they can from their environment, even when that’s waste from other microbes. If they are starved for food or water, sometimes they go dormant and wake when food or water become available.
With regards to banknotes, they are typically made with natural fibers that are nutritive, they have oils transferred from hands touching them, and a variety of trace amounts of other nutritive organic materials as they get handled and exposed to the environment.
It’s even crazier than OP thinks. Your body has 10x more bacteria cells in it than human cells 🤯
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