Germy Science: The Sick Truth about Getting Sick (and Staying Healthy)
Germs Are Everywhere You can't avoid germs They're everywhere in the air the soil the water your classroom your bedroom and even on this book They are all over you too on your skin in your mouth ears and nose inside your guts and yes in your bum Nobody knows for sure how many germs live in us and on us but the best guess is that it's somewhere between 100 trillion and 200 trillion per person That's more than the number of drops of water in 100,000 Olympic swimming pools But germs are so tiny that they are invisible to us unless we're looking through a microscope See this red dot It can hold about the same number of germs as the biggest stadium in the world can hold people Even though they're too small to be seen germs make their presence known If your nose has ever been filled with snot because you had a cold or you wish it were filled with snot so you couldn't smell someone's bad breath you've had a close encounter with germs
Hello Germs Germs get a bad rap because some of them can make us sick or even kill us But they aren't all bad If you've ever enjoyed some cheese or yogurt and then digested it along with all your other food you've experienced germs firsthand Germs do many things both helpful and harmful depending on the type of germ and where it is Some can turn milk sour and make our stomach ache or cause ear infections pimples chicken pox and cavities But other germs help us absorb vitamins make soil fertile for growing food and fight off other microbes that would make us ill Without germs you might never get sick but you also wouldn't live to enjoy your good health for very long because you literally can't survive without them So say hello to these tiny but influential inhabitants of our bodies and our world MILK
Great Grand Germs Germs are an ancient life form older than Neanderthals mastodons sharks and even dinosaurs They've been found in ancient Egyptian mummies and in T. rex fossils Germs appeared on Earth billions of years ago And we're lucky they did They transformed the planet Germs first lived in the oceans About 2.7 billion years ago Cyanobacteria also known as blue green algae began using sunshine water and carbon dioxide to produce chemical energy It's a process known as photosynthesis and it produces oxygen Before that there was little oxygen on Earth So if you've taken a breath of fresh air recently you can thank microbes for it Just try not to think of it as inhaling germ farts Humans are even distantly related to germs Scientists who have analyzed the DNA of an organism named Archaea believe that we and all other animals may have evolved from it Perhaps that's why bacteria enjoy camping out on us so much they're like relatives who come to visit and then never leave
Location Location Location Certain germs such as Escherichia coli better known as E. coli are good in some places but bad in others E. coli lives in our intestines where it helps us digest our meals Without it and other germs we wouldn't get the nutrients out of the food we eat and we'd die of starvation But if E. coli gets out of our guts and finds its way into other parts of our bodies it can make us very sick That's why it's important to wash your hands carefully with soap and water after you've gone to the bathroom You want to make sure that any dangerous E. coli on your fingers gets flushed down the drain YOU ARE HERE
