Killing all microbes

[Omnis]

I was recently reading an article in the newspaper about a study by the National Institutes of Health that cataloged over 10,000 species of microbes living on healthy people. The average person carries several pounds worth of microbes, many of which perform essential functions for keeping the body functioning. This suggested a thought experiment: let's say some mad scientist turned germ warfare on its head and developed a chemical agent that instantly killed any microbes with which it came in contact with. Seeing that all higher organisms are dependent on some number of microbes in their system, how long would it take people to die after all the microbes in their body have been killed off? Taking it one step further, what would happen if an entire region of the globe (or even the entire planet) had all of its microbes killed off?

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

You have to consider that cells are also considered microbes and if they instantly die, so does every living thing on the planet.

If you actually mean amoeba, fungi, viruses, and bacteria, without affecting base cells, then it might take a little longer but certain species would eventually die out. Not sure about plant species, though. I think they'd mostly be affected by loss of reproductive abilities that species of animals make crucial, such as bees and blossoming plants.

[Venusian Broon]

Apparently (at least according to New Scientist) 10% of your body mass is not your 'own' - it's loads of, mostly, gut bacteria that you take about with you. Surprisingly though 90% of the cells of you body are those 'alien' fauna (they're very much smaller than our actual cells!)

As for killing off all microbes - no yeast, no more beer, no more alcohol (A reason all on it's own for considering that the end had truly come ).

Fungi and other microbes are absolutely essential for breaking down dead matter - if it wasn't for that the seas and lands would be piled high with dead vegetable matter and the soils and habitats of the world would become poor with little nutrients. But probably most importantly - single celled plankton in the sea, especially the plants ones probably sustain the whole world. Off the top of my head, doesn't sea plankton generate half of all the oxygen in the globe?

We'd all suffocate to death.

[Stephen Palmer]

No microbes = no life.

Microbes will be the last thing left a couple of billion years from now when the atmosphere starts to vanish...

[Fairytale Jane]

I wonder if that's what happened with Mars. It took me some time to wrap my head on that. Mars has a still core which means that its magnetic sphere is nonexistent. All the things living on it died from exposure to radiation. It's strange how when things started dying Mars, things started kicking off at Earth.

An idea I like entertaining is one that what if the microbes on Mars hitched a ride on blasted debris from that terrible asteroid impact that afflicted the planet some time before? Half of its surface was literary blasted away. Here on Earth, life literary popped up overnight.

[Vertigo]

Well I wouldn't say that it "popped up". We have no accurate fossil evidence of exactly when life first appeared. But it is thought that from the first cells (microbes) to the first photosynthesising cells was around 4-500 million years, then another 1.5 billion years to get complex cells and around another 1 billion to the first multicellular life. So from the first life to the first multcellular life was nearly 3 billion years. (I think all those figures are roughly correct). All that compared to the simplest animals (very simple) appearing around 600 million years ago.

So I wouldn't exactly say life popped up overnight. It took around six time as long for life to get from the first cells to the first animals as it did for those animals to reach the modern day (and us).

Also, whatever some might like to say, there is still no hard evidence that there ever was ever any life at all on Mars.

[Fairytale Jane]

Perhaps I used a too harsh word to describe it. It's how I reason it in my head, despite the fact that many will take it to mean literary. The earliest fossil records of living things on Earth are soft tissue imprints. I just really can't stomach the fact that life came out of nothing. I mean the whole thing where the Big Bang (or the Big Expansion as it should really be called) came out of nothing was bad enough. I understand how something can turn into nothing but the other way around? Just no. It's either this or the fact that we are biologically flawed that strains my nerves sometimes. Did you know the human brain is wired in a way that it must make sense of everything? That is our perception.

So far, I know that early Earth was a delicious primordial soup of microbe goodness. What came first? The atmosphere or the sea? All really good questions and no concrete answers.

[Vertigo]

One of the problems is that our brains are wired to understand our own senses; we have now taken physics well beyond what we can detect with our own senses and not unsurprisingly there's a lot of stuff turning up that our brains aren't wired to understand. Study Quantum physics for a while and you'll soon see what I mean.

Something from nothing? Well actually this is something that is well proven. Scientists have created vacuums as near to perfect as possible and in these vacuums particles spontaneously come into existence, from nothing, exist for an infinitesimal time, then disappear again. This behaviour is consistent with the principles of quantum physics but it is just very difficult for us to accept and understand with minds that aren't wired to understand this sort of thing.

With regard to life, if you believe it arrived on this planet rather than spontaneously appearing then you are only pushing back the question. Where did that life come from? It must have come from somewhere so if it didn't originally get created spontaneously then where? You can keep pushing that question back but eventually you must get back to the first life and that life must have come into spontaneous existence.

Either that or you must believe in God. Your choice.

[Stephen Palmer]

If you're interested in the beginning of life on Earth, check out this superb book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Ascendi...1406092&sr=1-1

[Vertigo]

That does look like a very good book Stephen and quite reasonably priced as well. Could you tell me if there are any/many diagrams/pictures? I looked at the Amazon "look inside" and couldn't see any. It's just that if it does I would probably buy the paper book, if it doesn't I would probably buy the ebook.

[Stephen Palmer]

There are a small number of black and white photos, and diagrams. His other two books are also excellent, but Life Ascending I found to be exceptional.

[Vertigo]

Well, have added it to my wish list. If only that list wasn't quite so long...