New Window Opens on the Secret Life of Microbes

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Microbial profiles serve as the ecological version of the human genome project. Credit: Forest Rohwe San Diego State University
Microbial profiles serve as the ecological version of the human genome project. Credit: Forest Rohwe, San Diego State University

Nowhere is the principle of "strength in numbers" more apparent than in the collective power of microbes: despite their simplicity, these one-cell organisms -- which number about 5 million trillion trillion strong (no, that is not a typo) on Earth -- affect virtually every ecological process, from the decay of organic material to the production of oxygen.


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