¶ … Bacteria? Many people believe that bacteria only cause disease and death. This is not technically true. While we have all suffered from some kind of an infection which we are told is caused some noxious form of bacteria, this is just a small part of what bacteria contribute to out lives.

First, it would be well to add a bit of science to be clear about what bacteria are. Defined most correctly, bacteria are a large group of one-celled microorganisms widely distributed in nature. Search any microbiological text book and you will see that there are thousands of different types of bacteria in the world, everywhere around us, although only about two thousand species of bacteria have actually been identified. On the most part, bacteria simply share the world with us and are of no specific harm to any human being. They are remarkable organisms for their simplicity of form, their efficiency of life and their rapid ability to reproduce. It has been said that it is possible for some species of bacteria, within the correct environment, to reproduce themselves in the span of about twenty minutes, although most do not reproduce quite so rapidly. . As far as we know, bacteria have been present upon the earth for billions of years and are generally considered...

Most bacteria are very simple as far as their structure and function goes. They have a hard outer wall which is called a capsule; inside this capsule there exists a cell wall which guards the inner workings of the cell, called the cytoplasm. From within the cytoplasm comes the material from which the bacteria are able to reproduce. Interestingly enough, there are no organelles, which are small structures within cells that perform dedicated functions. As the name implies, you can think of organelles as small organs.
Most of us go through our lives never actually seeing any kind of bacteria ourselves, because they are so small. One must consider, however that within one gram of soil it is possible that up to 2.5 billion bacteria live in this environment. Bacteria can normally only be seen under a microscope. .

We know that bacteria are disease causing organisms, but it is important to remember that bacteria are an essential part of our ecosystem, and that without them it in unlikely that we would be able to survive as a species. One of the most important functions bacteria perform is that of decomposition and mineralization. Bacteria proliferate in dead material, which provides the bacteria…