What biologists don't know.

[hallenrm]

Lately I have been reading a very interesting book A short history of nearly everything http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0767908171/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/104-7340554-4735909?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books written by a very prolific writer Bill Bryson. In this book the author has very cleverly crafted a very interesting account of the history of discoveries in almost all fields of science. Look at the following paragraph in the chapter entitled Small world.

 

If you are in good health and averagely diligent about hygiene, you will have a herd of about one trillion bacteria grazing on your fleshy plains--about a hundred thousand of them on every square centimeter of skin...... you are for them the ultimate buffet, with the convenience of warmth and constant mobility thrown in.

 

And those are just the bacteria that inhabit your skin. There are trillions more tucked away in your gut and nasal passages, clinging to your hair and eyelashes, swimming over the surface of your eyes, drilling through the enamel of your teeth. Your digestive system alone is a host of hundred trillion microbes, of at least four hundred types. ..... A surprising number, like the ubiquitous intestinal spirochetes, have no detectable function at all. They just seem to like to be with you. Every human body consists of about ten quadrillion cells, but is a host of about a hundred quadrillion bacterial cells. They are in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria's point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them

 

How's that? But let me come back to what I intended to do here.

 

Never been a professional biologists myself I am at a loss to know the veracity of these statements. But if they are true, the question that faces me squarely on my face is, Do we know the role of all these organisms in influencing our intelligence, intuition etc? Is it possible that they may be playing roles we have never dreamt of?

 

Think, I think it is indeed worth it!:xx:

[Tormod]

Do we know the role of all these organisms in influencing our intelligence, intuition etc?

 

I think biologists have a decent clue as to what a lot of these organisms do. But all? No.

 

Is it possible that they may be playing roles we have never dreamt of?

 

Of course it is possible. But on our thoughts? Nah. But without these organisms we probably would not be alive.

 

It's the little things that matter. :xx:

[HydrogenBond]

Many of these organisms have formed a symbiotic relationship with us. They are like the little sucker fish on a shark keeping the shark's skin clean while enjoying a perpetual meal. Their large numbers are beneficial because it makes things crowded for foreign nonsymboitic lifeforms helping to keep their numbers from growing too fast. Personally, all these little tag-a-longs don't bother me. I has never been a burdening carrying all these little buggas around. I am sort of lazy, so rather than constantly abrade off dead skin cells ,I let the little guys take care of it. They work for garbage.

[hallenrm]

But on our thoughts? Nah.

 

Any evidence to that effect, or just a blind belief?

 

What I am attempting is to induce some younger minds to venture out in the realm of unknown and unexplored! :cup:

[Dov Henis]

I suggest a look at the following brief items:

 

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=110

 

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=168

 

Dov

[hallenrm]

Thanks Dov to let me know that I am indeed on the right track, at least as much as it concerns the veracity of the information that I quoted.

 

One of the several reasons why I initiated this thread is that it connected somewhere to my thoughts posted in an earlier thread

 

http://hypography.com/forums/biology/6056-do-biological-organisms-have-extra-chromosomal.html?

 

I have been now wondering is it possible that what I was thinking to be non chromosomal is in fact microbial. Isn't it true that both in the pre natal as well as in infancy the child is much more likely to be infected with the microbes present in the body of the persons closest to him, say the parents. So, if some microbes can affect the mental states of a person, and I think they can (thinking does not require any scientific evidence). And the increasing incidence of criminal activities in societies, which I equate with diseases leads me to the belief that indeed information that is due to the presence of a particular distribution of microbes can in fact be passed from one human being to another.

 

Anyone who dares to be with me on this thought?

[Boerseun]

These little guys aren't all complete freeloaders. Some of them actually do something. Like digesting food, for instance. We'd be lost without intestinal bacteria.

[Ganoderma]

Increased criminal is a social thing not so much a biological thing. In one country it is accepted in another it is punished by death. i don't think these things are relevant to what’s living on our bodies. They may possibly lead us in certain directions such as moods, feeling etc, but as far as being criminal that would be very hard to believe (for me).

 

This makes me think of ants and how the queen can send messages through scent. others through sounds, others through sight (people through all). Perhaps it is possible for them to influence us. i know if i smell a person with BAD B.O. i go away. this could be interpreted as what you are talking about, no?

[hallenrm]

Yes indeed Boerseun, continuing with my reading

 

We depend totally on bacteria to pluck nitrogen from the air and convert it into useful nucleotides and amino acids for us. It is a prodigious and gratifying feat. As Margulis and Sagan note, to do the samething industrially (as when making fertilizers) manufacturers must heat the source materials to 500 degrees Celsius and squeeze them to 300 times normal pressure. Bacteria do the same thing all the time without fuss, and thank goodness, for no large organism could survive without the nitrogen they pass on......Microbes including the modern versions of cyanobacteria, supply the greater part of the planet's breathable oxygen.

 

So you see bacteria are amazingly prolific. So I do believe they will find a role in future communication sans any electronic device. Get ready to face the change.

 

:lol:

[Boerseun]

So I do believe they will find a role in future communication sans any electronic device.

I agree, they are amazing. But I wouldn't quite go that far in saying how cool they are...

[hallenrm]

Increased criminal is a social thing not so much a biological thing. In one country it is accepted in another it is punished by death. i don't think these things are relevant to what’s living on our bodies.

 

But I think antisocial activities are the same in every society, that is, if they fall under the concept of a society. Only social laws can be different.

 

As far as your last statement is concerned, I would only say, it is hard to change one's point of view on any subject, so I am really not disturbed or surprised, i expect it! :doh:

[Dov Henis]

For non-genetic inheritance and selection:

 

1) I suggest these links for thoughts of some science philosophers;

 

http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/55/1/35

 

http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~gmm32/MAMELI_INHERITANCE_2004.pdf

 

2) In my own opinion the only way of doing justice to this jungle of a subject is not to examine it from among the trees but to survey it from high above:

 

A. Humans have just started to be able to learn and to learn somethings about genes and genetics. They even have'nt yet gotten used to the idea that a genome is the communal coop of now interdependent, but long-ago independent and most probably yet uncelled living organisms, genes.

 

B. Humans have'nt yet gotten used to the idea that each multicelled life form is a spacestation comprising many spaceships-cells. Thus in our case the station comprises circa 10^13 spaceship cells with our genomes-bases editions plus 10^14 spaceship cells with genomes of hundreds of varieties of monocelled organisms. Now considering the numbers + variety of structures of the dynamically living genomes imagine the possible extent of variations between spacestations of a single genotype group.

 

C. Just for a relatively easy thought exercise consider only two countries/spacestations, each with only circa 10^9 population/spaceships, China and India. Ask yourself to what would you attribute the variety of differences between them...

 

D. We always need to bear in mind how minute we are, how only recently we learned to think, and how small our total extent of knowledge and comprehension is of the universe and of life.

 

I think,

 

Dov

[CraigD]

… the increasing incidence of criminal activities in societies, which I equate with diseases leads me to the belief that indeed information that is due to the presence of a particular distribution of microbes can in fact be passed from one human being to another.

 

Anyone who dares to be with me on this thought?

I’m skeptical of hallenrm’s speculation that criminal behavior is significantly influenced by sub-acute (not noticeably symptomatic) disease, due to bacteria or other pathogens. Such behaviors are complicated, and have strong cognitive and moral components, with which I can’t readily imaging bacteria interacting.

 

Still, I suspect that bacteria can play a role in shaping personality, and hence criminal or other behavior. Acute bacterial infection such as Hib infection can cause mental retardation. Contrary to the stereotype of the “criminal genius”, there is a strong correlation between lower intelligence and criminal behavior, so, one can reason, a disease that that reduces an individual’s intelligence increases their risk of developing criminal or other maladaptive behavior.

 

More interesting, I think, is the role bacteria may play in all human behavior, criminal and otherwise. It’s interesting to note that Apocrine sweat glands, which develop in many mammals, including humans, during puberty, appear to be adapted to the purpose of making food for bacteria. Though commonly referred to as “scent glands”, and associated with pheromones, the fatty, waxy sebum produced by these glands actually have almost no odor. The various strong scents of our armpits and genitals are from the bacteria that consume this excretion, so much of an individual’s scent is actually the scent of the bacteria colonizing them.

 

Despite our relatively low-sensitivity noses, scent appears to play an important role in human communication. Hence, bacteria play an important role in human communication.

[hallenrm]

Thanks CraigD :), that is indeed the kind of interaction that I look foreward to, always!

 

But let us consider it this way,

 

1. The brain functioning requires maxinum blood supply
   
2. If there is a proliferation of bacteria, many which we may not be even aware of, isn't it reasonable to assume that some of them enter the blood stream too.
   
3. If the above two statements make sense then it follows that there is a possibility of bacterial infection of the brain, that may manifest itself as malignancy as you have pointed out or abnormal urge or capacity to engage in anti social activities.
   

 

I was only thinking aloud, call it brainstorming. :cup:

[Boerseun]

Humans constantly kiss, touch, shake hands, etc.

 

And this has the handy side-effect of distributing all kinds of bacteria amongst the population.

 

Elephant babies, however, routinely eat their mother's dung in order to charge their intestines with the required bacteria to break down plant material. If you take a newborn elephant calf and rear it with milk, it will eventually die, seeing as it didn't get the proper bacterial charge and hence can't eat plants. It seems as if the evolution of animals and their dependence on bacteria goes back a long, long way.

 

Faced with the above options, I'll stick to kissing and shaking hands, though.

[hallenrm]

Here's a very relevant post by Michaelangelica in the thread What viruses can do. It is a quote from an article in the Journal The Scientist

 

Two quoted SUPERB paras (The Scientist,Vol 17,Issue 11,20. Jun 3,2003) from "Getting in Tune With the Enemy", by J Lederberg.

 

(A) " Today, we are carrying around 500 different integrated retroviruses in our own genome. After millions of years of evolution, the ancient viruses now perform indispensable defense functions for the host. The microbes that co-inhabit our bodies show considerable self-restraint by moderating the virulence of disease, especially in well-established relationships with animal hosts. Systemic pathogens such as staphylococci and streptococci, that long ago invaded us and now live within our bodies, rarely secrete extreme toxins. In consequence, probably a third of us are walking around as healthy carriers of these bugs."

 

(:cup: " Multitudes of bacteria and viruses occupy our skin, our mucous membranes and our intestinal tracts, and we must learn to live with them in a "truce" rather than victory. Understanding this cohabitation of genomes within the human body--what I call the microbiome--is central to understanding the dynamics of health and disease.

 

THE ENEMY SHOULD HAVE WON:... From an evolutionary point of view, microbes are extremely successful. They can grow and evolve in cycles of 20 minutes or less. A community of a billion cells can be replaced overnight from a single seed. Tens of billions of cells can be cultured in a single small test tube.

[CraigD]

If there is a proliferation of bacteria, many which we may not be even aware of, isn't it reasonable to assume that some of them enter the blood stream too.

Surprisingly, it appears bacteria rarely do enter the blood stream, and when they do, such as through a cut or scrape, they encounter an aggressive response from the immune system (see the Wikipedia article “Bacteremia”). Unlike our skin and guts, our blood is effectively bacteria-free.

 

When bacteria gets into our blood, is not successfully killed by our immune cells, and finds its way into tissues where it should not be, disease, potentially grave, occurs. Such disease can cause brain damage that leads to aberrant behavior – a well known and long-understood example of this is the frequently bizarre behavior of victims of tertiary syphilis. Research clinicians have suggested, and occasionally demonstrated, that other distinct psychiatric conditions are caused by bacterial infections.

 

However, I’m unaware of any highly correlated causitive link between such infections and criminal behavior. Although the incidence of diseases, both bacterial ones such as syphilis, and viral ones such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS, is significantly higher in prison populations than in the general population, this higher incidence appears to be the result of criminal behavior, most significantly inhaled and injected illicit drug use, rather than the disease being the cause of the criminal behavior.