Unseeable creatures

Bacteria! Bacteria! bacteria! Everyone keeps on saying and talking about bacteria but what are bacteria? Where did they come from? Why do they hurt you?

So many questions! Take it easy, I’ll tell you everything.

Bacteria

Bacteria (plural of bacterium) are single celled organisms that are present everywhere.

A cell is the building block of life; it means all life starts from a cell. Some organisms have millions of cells but the bacterium has only one cell.

Bacteria also eat!

Some bacteria make their own food.

How? Bacteria make their own food by using sunlight, a gas called carbon dioxide, and water. This process of making food is called photosynthesis.

Some bacteria are choosy, they don’t like the food prepared from photosynthesis so they add chemicals like ammonia, nitrogen, sulfur and others in addition to sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. This process of preparing food is called chemosynthesis.

But some bacteria are lazy. They don’t make their food instead they eat already made products like substances from dead bodies.

Some bacteria are similar to you in this way because they also like eating already made food. By the way, I also like already made food.

So are you ready to see what’s inside bacteria!

I know you are ready so let’s start!

There’s a castle named bacteria with many walls and in the middle of that castle is a secret room where all the secrets and history of the castle lies. These walls protect the secret room.

The outer wall of the castle is called capsule. It helps the castle from drying out. Then there comes a wall called a cell envelope. This wall has three sub divisiond: cytoplasmic membrane, cell wall, and outer capsule.

They work together. Means that the cell wall protects the cytoplasmic membrane. The main function of the cell wall is to protect the castle from bursting due to high water pressure.

The cytoplasmic membrane is the innermost wall of the castle it protects the castle from inside.

Inside this wall, there’s a hall where the secret room known as nucleoid lies. That hall is called cytoplasm.

Now, the secret that lies in the nucleoid is: it has the information for the formation of a new bacteria. It also has the information of making different kinds of proteins.

Did you know the castle is also moveable? It moves with the help of a tail-like structure called flagella. Around This castle there lies hair-like structures as well that allow the bacteria to attach with other bacteria.

There are small substances in a bacterial cell called ribosomes. These ribosomes make proteins according to the information that nucleoid gives and then these proteins perform all functions in the cell.

Where did bacteria come from?

Scientists believe that bacteria came from an organism called thermophiles. These are the organisms that used to live on earth many many years ago when earth was too hot, acidic and had high radiations of the sun.

Then the temperature changed. Earth cooled down and these organisms changed(evolved) into bacteria.

Do bacteria talk?

Yeah, they do talk!

Let’s take an example: when you get a wound. The bacteria release chemicals. When these chemicals reach other bacteria, they come and attack the wound. When they are together they have qualities of some multicellular organisms. In this way, bacteria shut down when there are some antibiotics. When antibiotics are gone, they turn themselves on again.

Clever little creatures!

This process of communication between bacteria is called quorum sensing. The chemicals responsible for communication are called N-Acyl homoserine lactones.

How does your body protect you from bad bacteria?

There’s a system in your body called the immune system. This system protects you from bacteria.

Let’s understand how it works!

When any bacterium enters your body. Your body produces soldiers called antibodies. These soldiers fight and if they are strong enough, they kill that bacterium. At the same time, your body produces memory cells that remember that outsider (bacterium).

So if that outsider comes again your body will already have soldiers.

Vaccines work in the same way. But the difference is that the outsider is artificial, means that humans inject the weak or dead version of the virus in you. Then your body makes soldiers. So when the real virus enters in your body, there are already soldiers in your body to kill it.

Isn’t it amazing!

Are there any bacteria in space?

Yes, there are bacteria in space even some of the earth bacteria can also live in space.

Scientists found a bacterial species on the moon called streptococcus mitis.

This species also lives in your mouth. It can also cause infection in the inner surface of your heart which can lead to stroke, kidney failure, and backward flow of blood in your heart.

Do all bacteria look the same?

No, they don’t look the same. There are five basic shapes of bacteria:

Spherical
Rod
Spiral
Comma
Corkscrew

Bacteria have different shapes for survival in different environments. Like the bacteria that attaches with your cells and damages them are rod shaped and have hairs on them which helps them to attach with your body cells.

Want to know some more about bacteria?

There are two types of bacteria:

Gram positive bacteria
Gram negative bacteria

The main difference between these two types is that gram-negative bacteria have an extra outer membrane to protect them from antibiotics(substances to kill bacteria or to stop their growth).

How were bacteria discovered?

Once there was a cloth merchant named Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek. He built the first microscope ever.

One day, he was studying pond and rainwater and he discovered little creatures in water. He called them animalcula—little animals. Those little animals were bacteria.

Are all bacteria evil?

No, some bacteria are good. These bacteria are called probiotics. They help you in faster digestion of food, they make your immune system strong and they also have many more roles.

Some of the names of these bacteria are:

Lactobacillus Casei
Lactobacillus gasseri
Bafidobacterium lactis

From where will you get these bacteria?

These bacteria are present in cereal, soya milk, cottage cheese, and sour cream.

Evil bacteria

There are bacteria around you that only exist to hurt you but some of you are strong to fight bacteria but not all of you are strong. So if you are not strong enough then you have to be and I’ll tell you how.

Below are some bacteria that are responsible for most deaths: