It’S PROBABLY NOt a good idea to take too personal an interest in your microbes. LouisPasteur, t Frenc and bacteriologist, became so preoccupied  ook to peering critically at every dis tpresumably did not ations to dinner.

    In fact, t in trying to eria, for t conceive. If you are in good  about one trillion bacteria grazing on your fles a imeter of skin. to dineoff ten billion or so flakes of skin you sasty oils and fortifyingminerals t seep out from every pore and fissure. You are for timate food court,ant mobility they giveyou B.O.

    And t teria t in your skin. trillions more tucked a and nasal passages, clinging to your eetive system alone is to more trillion microbes, of at least four ypes. Some deal arctack oteria. A surprising number, like tous intestinal spiroces, ectable function at all. t seem to like tobe s of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100quadrillion bacterial cells. t, a big part of us. From teria’s point ofvie of them.

    Because ilize antibiotics anddisinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves t o tence. Don’t you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities or eresting social lives,but t, and  onlybecause to be.

    Bacteria, never forget, got along for billions of years  us. e couldn’t survive a day tes and make t tmunc. ter and keep our soils productive. Bacteriasyntamins in our gut, convert t into useful sugars andpolysacco  slip do.

    e depend totally on bacteria to pluck nitrogen from t it into usefulnucleotides and am