The Huge Entity: Stupefyingly Small Things

Stupefyingly Small Things

Thursday, March 09, 2006 → by Danieru

In the spirit of maintaining a balanced universe here are some Excruciatingly Small Things - Fractal constellations erupting from the humble Petri-dish...

Bacteria, it must be said, are simple, fascinating and make up the vast majority of the Earth's biomass:

Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the first half of life's history, with no slackening in diversity thereafter; but also, and most surprisingly, total bacterial biomass (even at such minimal weight per cell) may exceed all the rest of life combined, even forest trees, once we include the subterranean populations as well. Need any more be said in making a case for the modal bacteria as life's constant center of maximal influence and importance? - link

Indulge yourself in their stupefying splendour! For all Earth's multifaceted biodiversity is naught but a fleeting consequence of their continued success.

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