The Invisible Universe Of The Human Microbiome

You Almost Certainly Have Mites On Your Face Think of all the adults you know. Think of your parents and grandparents. Think of the teachers you had at school, your doctors and dentists, the people who collect your rubbish, and the actors you see on TV. All of these people probably have little mites crawling, eating, sleeping, and having sex on their faces. There are more than 48,000 species of mites. As far as we know, exactly two of those live on human faces. Evolutionary Medicine Dr. Biology: This is Ask A Biologist, a program about the living world and I'm Doctor Biology. You probably don't know it, but I just got over having a cold, so if my voice sounds a little bit different, that's probably why. If you describe it, it's the typical sneezy, runny nose and coughing type of cold. And while I say typical, well even cold viruses, there are a whole bunch of them - at least 150 different types. Just ask my wife who was getting over a cold when I got back with this particular cold virus while I was away on a trip and so one cold is bad enough, but in her case she got two colds in a row, which brings me to the topic of today's show getting sick and why do we get sick?

Good microbes Inside and outside of the body Dr. Biology: This is Ask A Biologist, a program about the living world, and I'm Dr. Biology. Environmental Engineer Microbes are all around us. They live inside of us, on top of us, in our food, and in nearly all the places on earth we can think of. Most microbes are friendly – like almost all of the ones inside of our intestines – but a few are dangerous to our health. Despite needing a microscope to see them, microbes make up about 18% of all the living material in the world. We are only beginning to understand how important microbes are to life on Earth.