Microorganism
hideA microorganism (from the Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and ὀργανισμός, organismós, "organism"; also spelled micro organism or micro-organism) or microbe is an organism that is microscopic (usually too small to be seen by the naked human eye). The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design.
Microorganisms are very diverse; they include bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists; microscopic plants (called green algae); and animals such as plankton, the planarian and the amoeba. Some microbiologists also include viruses, but others consider these as non-living. Most microorganisms are unicellular (single-celled), but this is not universal, since some multicellular organisms are microscopic, while some unicellular protists and bacteria, like Thiomargarita namibiensis, are macroscopic and visible to the naked eye.
Microorganisms live in all parts of the biosphere where there is liquid water, including soil, hot springs, on the ocean floor, high in the atmosphere and deep inside rocks within the Earth's crust. Microorganisms are critical to nutrient recycling in ecosystems as they act as decomposers. As some microorganisms can fix nitrogen, they are a vital part of the nitrogen cycle, and recent studies indicate that airborne microbes may play a role in precipitation and weather.
Microbes are also exploited by people in biotechnology, both in traditional food and beverage preparation, and in modern technologies based on genetic engineering. However, pathogenic microbes are harmful, since they invade and grow within other organisms, causing diseases that kill millions of people, other animals, and plants.
For more information about Microorganism, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with microbes
India's 'holy powder' finally reveals its centuries-old secret
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Apr 20, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (31) |
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Scientists in Michigan are reporting discovery of the secret behind the fabled healing power of the main ingredient in turmeric — a spice revered in India as "holy powder." Their study on the ingredient, curcumin, ...
Microbes beneath sea floor genetically distinct
Biology /
Jul 21, 2008 |
4.8 / 5 (27) |
2
Tiny microbes beneath the sea floor, distinct from life on the Earth's surface, may account for one-tenth of the Earth's living biomass, according to an interdisciplinary team of researchers, but many of these minute creatures ...
Mystery Solved: Marine Microbe Is Source of Rare Nutrient
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 29, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (23) |
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of microscopic marine microbes, called phytoplankton, by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of South Carolina has solved a ten-year-old ...
Planet's nitrogen cycle overturned by 'tiny ammonia eater of the seas'
Sep 30, 2009 |
5 / 5 (12) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- It's not every day you find clues to the planet's inner workings in aquarium scum. But that's what happened a few years ago when University of Washington researchers cultured a tiny organism from the bottom ...
A tiny frozen microbe may hold clues to extraterrestrial life
Jun 15, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (12) |
2
A novel bacterium that has been trapped more than three kilometres under glacial ice in Greenland for over 120 000 years, may hold clues as to what life forms might exist on other planets.
Water Bears to Travel to Martian Moon, Test Theory of Transpermia
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Oct 13, 2009 |
3.9 / 5 (14) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny microscopic creatures commonly known as water bears (also called Tardigrades), along with a few other life forms, will be sent to the Martian moon Phobos to test whether organisms can ...
Oil-eating microbes give clue to ancient energy source
Biology /
Sep 09, 2008 |
3.6 / 5 (14) |
0
Microbes that break down oil and petroleum are more diverse than we thought, suggesting hydrocarbons were used as an energy source early in Earth's history, scientists heard today at the Society for General Microbiology's ...
Study helps clarify role of soil microbes in global warming
Oct 28, 2008 |
4 / 5 (12) |
3
(PhysOrg.com) -- Current models of global climate change predict warmer temperatures will increase the rate that bacteria and other microbes decompose soil organic matter, a scenario that pumps even more heat-trapping carbon ...
MIT reels in RNA surprise with microbial ocean catch
May 13, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (9) |
0
An ingenious new method of obtaining marine microbe samples while preserving the microbes' natural gene expression has yielded an unexpected boon: the presence of many varieties of small RNAs — snippets of RNA that act as ...
No joy in discoveries of new mammal species -- only a warning for humanity, Paul Ehrlich says
Biology /
Feb 09, 2009 |
2.5 / 5 (17) |
9
In the era of global warming, when many scientists say we are experiencing a human-caused mass extinction to rival the one that killed off the dinosaurs, one might think that the discovery of a host of new species would be ...
Researchers Develop New Geobacter Microbe Strain to Produce More Electricity, Open New Applications
Jul 28, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (8) |
1
(PhysOrg.com) -- In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the ...
Microbes, by latitudes and altitudes, shed new light on life's diversity
Biology /
Aug 11, 2008 |
4.6 / 5 (8) |
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Microbial biologists, including the University of Oregon's Jessica L. Green, may not have Jimmy Buffett's music from 1977 in mind, but they are changing attitudes about evolutionary diversity on Earth, from ...
Our microbes, ourselves
Biology /
Jan 19, 2009 |
4.4 / 5 (7) |
1
In terms of diversity and sheer numbers, the microbes occupying the human gut easily dwarf the billions of people inhabiting the Earth. Numbering in the tens of trillions and representing many thousands of ...
Salmonella Spills its Secrets on the Space Shuttle
May 07, 2009 |
4.3 / 5 (7) |
0
Salmonella, what's gotten into you? Researchers have been asking themselves this question ever since Salmonella bacteria grown on board the space shuttle returned to Earth 3 to 7 times more virulent than S ...
How Mercury Becomes Toxic In The Environment
Aug 18, 2009 |
3.8 / 5 (8) |
8
(PhysOrg.com) -- Naturally occurring organic matter in water and sediment appears to play a key role in helping microbes convert tiny particles of mercury in the environment into a form that is dangerous to ...
