Bacteria 1

Bacteria Basics
Many of us know bacteria only as germs,
invisible creatures that can invade our
bodies and make us ill. They live in, on and
around us all the time.
Not everyone knows that bacteria also do
lots of good things, like break down dead
leaves and other rubbish, and make
oxygen.
We can even use bacteria, making them
work for us!

Bacteria consist of only a single cell each,
whereas each one of you is made up of
about 10,000,000,000,000 cells! But
dont start feeling superior bacteria are
amazing, and very important! Without
them, you couldnt even survive!
If there is just one of them, we call it a
bacterium.
These bacteria turn milk into yoghurt!
These bacteria give you a sore throat!
Bacteria 2
How They Get Around
Bacteria have many different shapes.
Some have 'tails' (called flagella) that let
them swim. They rotate their flagella like
tiny propellers to move themselves
through liquids.
Other bacteria make slime so they can
ooze over surfaces like slugs.
Others stay almost in the same spot.

What They Look Like
There are thousands of types of bacteria.
Some are rod-shaped; others are shaped
like little balls. Some are spirals.
You could fit 1000 of them across 1 mm!

Pretty, but hard to
draw!

Draw this one its
simpler!
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Where Theyre Found
Bacteria can be found almost everywhere!
Bacteria live on or in just about every material
and place on Earth, from soil to water to air,
and from your body to the North Pole to the
Sahara desert.
Many types can survive below freezing
temperature (0C)., and some types can
survive above boiling point (100C).

This picture was taken with a very
powerful microscope. This bacterium
lives in soil, and moves through soil
water using its flagella.

Lots of them live on you, but dont worry,
almost all of them are good for you! Each
square centimetre of your skin has about
100,000 bacteria on it.
This picture shows bacteria on human skin.
(They arent really bright pink; theyve been
coloured in pink so you can see them better.)
That big tree trunk in the picture is actually a
human hair. So now you can see how small
bacteria are!
Bacteria Extras 1
Read at your own risk this may shock you!
How Long Theyve Been Around
Like dinosaurs, bacteria left behind
fossils. The big difference is that it takes
a microscope to see them. And they are
older.
Bacteria were the earliest forms of life on
Earth. They first appeared about 4 billion
years ago, and for the next 2 billion years
they were the only life on Earth!

Without Bacteria, We Could Never
Have Existed!
Earth was a poisonous place back in the
early days. There was no oxygen around, so
we and most other animals and plants could
not have existed.
Then some types of bacteria started
making oxygen using the energy from
sunlight they had invented
photosynthesis! Once plenty of oxygen had
built up in the atmosphere, it became
possible for plants and animals to develop.
So bacteria paved the way for us! Thank
you, bacteria!
Bacteria fossil, 3 million years old
Earth might have looked like this in the early days.
Bacteria are Different From All
Other Living Things!

Like us, bacteria have DNA, or genes,
inside the cell. But unlike ours, their DNA
is not contained in the little package we
call the nucleus. It just floats around in
the cytoplasm.
Different types of bacteria eat different
foods. Some eat sugar and starch; others
eat sulfur, or even iron!
Others use sunlight to make their own
food, like plants do.
Bacteria Extras 2
Read at your own risk this may shock you!
This twisty-looking bacterium eats
iron for its dinner! Weird!
Someone has knitted this
bacterium! (Real ones dont have
eyes, of course. Or ears, or noses.
But they can find their way around
by detecting different chemicals
around them.)
The Bacteria in YOU!
There are 100 trillion (100,000,000,000,000)
bacteria weighing 2 kilos altogether -
happily living in your intestines. That's ten
times more bacteria than there are cells in your
body, more bacteria than the number of stars in
our galaxy, more bacteria than the number of
humans who have ever lived (estimated, by the
way, at 100 billion) ... You get the picture. There
are a lot.
To an alien landing on our planet, we humans
might just seem like a chain of bacteria hotels!
Bacteria Extras 3
Read at your own risk this may shock you!
This is one of the types of good
bacteria that live in peoples intestines.
The makers of
this probiotic
yoghurt claim
that the bacteria
in it are good for
your digestive
system.
Whether or not
thats true, they
are certainly
safe to eat.
Babies are born with no bacteria in
their intestines, but within a few weeks
bacteria have got in and made their
home there.
Without these bacteria in our guts, we
would have difficulties digesting all our
food, and we would become unwell.