Bacteria and microbes under the microscope (photo)

The fact that we are surrounded by microbes, the Dutch scientist Levenguk discovered. Later Pasteur managed to establish a connection between them and many diseases. Microbes appeared on Earth as one of the first and could perfectly live up to our days, populating almost every corner of the globe. They are found in the hot vents of volcanoes and in permafrost, in waterless deserts and in the waters of the world's oceans. Moreover, they are perfectly settled in other living organisms and flourish there, sometimes leading their master to death.

How were the microbes discovered?

Antony Levenguk invented a microscope and with his help he liked to look at things that can not be seen with the naked eye. It was 1676 year. Somehow the inventor decided to find out why the tincture of pepper burns the tongue, looked at her solution in a microscope and was shocked. In a drop of matter, as if in some fantastic world, hundreds of rods, balls, spiralaches and hooks were circling, sliding, or lying motionless. This is how the microbes look under the microscope. Leuvenook began to examine everything in the microscope that came to hand, and everywhere he found hundreds of previously unknown creatures, called them animalcules. The scientist scraped the plaque from his teeth and also looked at it with the aid of a device. As he later wrote, in the dental plaque of the animalkul was more than the inhabitants in the whole Kingdom. These simple studies laid the foundation for a whole science called microbiology (photo of a fungus on bread).

Microbes - is who or what?

Microbes called a huge group of protozoa microorganisms, uniting in their ranks of the creatures of non-nuclear (bacteria, archei), and having a nucleus (fungi). There are countless numbers on the Earth. There are about one million species of bacteria. For a number of reasons they are referred to living organisms. Many people wonder how microbes look under the microscope. Their appearance is quite diverse. The sizes of microbes range from 0.3 to 750 micrometers (1 micron is equal to a thousandth of a millimeter). In shape, they are round, like a ball (cocci), rod-like (bacilli and others), twisted into spirals (spirillae, vibrios), like cubes, asterisks and bagels. Many microbes have flagella and villi for more successful movement. Most of them are unicellular, but there are also multicellular, for example, fungi and a bacterium of blue-green alga (photos of mold bacteria).

Conditions of existence and habitat

Most of the microbes known today exist in environments with a moderately warm temperature. 40 degrees or higher, they stand no more than an hour, and when boiled die instantly. Also harmful to them are radiation and direct sunlight. However, there are among them extremals that can withstand even + 400 degrees Celsius! And the bacterium flavobactin lives in the stratosphere, without fear of neither cold nor cosmic radiation.

All bacteria breathe. Only one for this requires oxygen, and the other - carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen and other elements. The only thing that all microbes need is liquid. If there is no water, slime will suit them. These are microorganisms living in the body of animals and humans. It is estimated that in each of us about 2 kg of microbes. They are in the stomach, intestines, lungs, on the skin, in the mouth. Very numerous microbes under the fingernails (under a microscope it is perfectly visible). During the day, we take care of a multitude of objects, placing microbes located on them, on their hands. Usual soap destroys most microbes, but under the fingernails, especially the long ones, they linger and successfully reproduce (photos of bacteria on the skin).

Food

Microbes, like humans, feed on proteins, carbohydrates, mineral supplements, fats. Many of them "love" vitamins.

If you look at the microbes under a microscope with a good increase, you can consider their structure. They have a nucleoid that stores DNA, ribosomes that synthesize proteins from amino acids, and a special membrane. Through it, germs absorb food. There are microbes autotrophic, assimilating the substances they need from inorganic compounds. There are heterotrophic, which can only feed on ready-made organic substances. This is all known yeast, mold, putrefactive bacteria. Human food is the most desirable medium for them. There are microbes paratrophic, existing only at the expense of organics of other living beings. These include all pathogenic bacteria. Most microbes, with the exception of halophiles, can not exist in a medium with a high salt concentration. This feature is used for salting food (photo of gonorrhea bacteria).

Reproduction

Incredibly, some types of microbes have a sexual process, although in the most primitive form. It consists in the transfer of hereditary genes from the parent cells to the offspring. This happens by contacting "parents", or absorbing one another. As a result, microbes "children" inherit the traits of both parents. But most microbes and bacteria multiply by dividing by means of a transverse constriction or by budding. Observing the microbes under the microscope, you can see how some of them at one end appears a small process (kidney). He quickly increases, then separates from the mother's body and begins an independent life. Microbial "mom" in this way can produce up to 4 offspring, then dies (photo Helicobacter pylori, causes gastrointestinal ulcers, cancer).

Than microbes differ from viruses?

Some think that viruses and microbes are one and the same thing. But it's not right. Viruses, being the most numerous form of life, refer to organisms that live only at the expense of others. If we can see the microbes under a microscope or even in a magnifying glass, then viruses that have a hundredfold less bacteria can be considered only in powerful electron microscopes. All the viruses are parasites that cause diseases of humans, plants, animals and even microbes. The latter are called bacteriophages. On Earth, they are much more than bacteria. For example, there are about 250 million of them in a spoonful of sea water. Sea water is therefore useful, because bacteria contained in it kill bacteriophages. Attached to the body of bacteria, they destroy its shell and penetrate inside. There, viruses begin to produce themselves, resulting in the host cell dying. The same behave and the virus. This property is used in medicine in the production of antibiotics (in the photo - bacteriophages).

Microbes-friends

It's amazing, but only a tenth of trillions of our cells are actually human. The rest belong to bacteria and microbes. This photo of microbes under the microscope represents bifidobacteria. They help us digest food, protect against pathogenic microbes, produce amino acids. Our gastrointestinal bacteria are of great benefit. However, only as long as their number is strictly balanced. As soon as any bacteria becomes more than necessary, a person develops various diseases, from dysbacteriosis to stomach ulcers.

Useful and include the dairy bacteria, "making" for us kefir, cheese, yoghurt. Bacteria are also used in the production of wine, yeast, environmental herbicides, fertilizers and much more.

Our worst enemies

In addition to "good" microbes, there is a huge army of "bad" - pathogenic. These include plague rod, bacteria of diphtheria, syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer, etc. "Bad" microbes around us trillions. They are everywhere, but they are especially numerous in places of common use - on pens in public transport, on money, in public toilets. Microbes on the hands under the microscope, if you look at them after returning from the store, just swarm. Therefore, you need to wash your hands often, but without fanaticism. Use antibacterial agents is undesirable, as this leads to dry skin and weakens the immune system.

A shocking spectacle is also caused by microbes on the teeth under a microscope. They come to us in the mouth with food, with kisses, with breathing. How many of them in the mouth, it is difficult to say, if only a toothbrush can count up to 100 million parasites. Especially if the toothbrush is stored in the same room as the toilet. Microbes in the mouth are the culprits of caries, periodontal disease, infectious diseases. To interfere with their activities can be a regular cleaning of teeth and tongue, and after each meal - rinsing the mouth with bactericidal preparations.