Prokaryotes, Eukaryotes & Viruses Tutorial

Reading this tutorial reminded me of the 1960's movie "Fantastic Voyage"...I'll never forget the scene when the leukocytes attacked the scientist's ship, dealing with them as they would any other foreign body. It's just amazing to me all the microscopic lifeforms, having their own experiences, that we are oblivious to...like bacteria and viruses.

The Archaea are really interesting in that they are single-celled, and genetically distinct from bacteria, while thriving in extreme environmental conditions. That's incredible to me. Like the lifeforms that live under the ocean in the thermal vents. How they tolerate the extreme heat is beyond me.

When I was reading about the Eukaryotes (which includes animals, plants and fungi) with all their specialized bio membranes and organelles, it seemed weird to me that the prevailing theory about their mitochondria and chloroplasts are believed to have originated as captured bacterium?! What a strange concept to consider. Here is an amazing organism, with complicated internal structures, their own genes and DNA, complete with a nucleus. Why, then, do we think that they wouldn't by design have a structure for energy production such as the mitochondria and one for photosynthesis, such as the chloroplasts. That would seem to be pretty core functionality...that bit of hypothesis was a disconnect for me.

The other thing that struck me was the Graph of Infectious Disease Killers in 1995...when I looked at it, I was struck by a couple of things...TB claimed 3.1 million lives. I know that there are multiple, drug-resistant strains of TB out there. Mainly, it's because the treatment centers around this multiple drug cocktail that someone suffering with the disease has to take for a year of more! As a matter of fact, the CDC office in Berkeley has some incurable strains in deep freeze for research purposes. I worked on a video project in 2000 for the World Health Organization and had the chance to work with a number of Microbiologists, who told me all sorts of unsettling information such as that.

And another 3.1 million died from Diarrhea...I guess that must have to do with unsanitary living conditions in third world countries suffering behind war and conflict (think: Africa and South America). It's really tragic because it is probably easily avoidable and curable...if only they had the proper public health and medical services.

Another thing my Microbiologist friends told me was that the range of Malaria is increasing due to global pollution and temperature changes. Such that the range of the mosquitoes that carry Malaria has increased and they are now seeing cases of the disease at elevations previously immune to the problem. These are some of the hidden problems caused by global warming.

And, as far as the 4.4 million cases of Respiratory Infections, again, I can't help think that the global pollution situation is easily contributing to these numbers.

So, if we were to consider species dominance based on sheer numbers, it's obvious that the bacteria and viruses are winning...and it looks like they just might come out on top in the end...by our own hand.