20 Unbelievable Facts About Bacteria Few People Know

A microbiologist examined samples from 33 keyboards and found a variety of bugs including E coli and S aureus, which can cause skin infections and make people ill. One of the keyboards had to be removed from the office because it was five times dirtier than a toilet.

There is a species of bacteria named Deinococcus radiodurans which is so resistant to radiation that scientists have nicknamed it “Conan the Bacterium.”

There is a bacteria named Tersicoccus phoenicis that can survive with almost no nutrients in a spacecraft assembly clean room and is resistant against the sterilization measures used there.

A bacteria named Paracoccus denitrificans not only survived in an ultracentrifuge with high speeds corresponding to 403,627 g, but actually had robust cellular growth. Hyperaccelerations like this are found in very massive stars and the shockwaves of supernovas.

Magnetospirillum magneticum is a free-living bacteria which has the ability to actively take in iron, convert it to magnetic magnetite, align it like a backbone along its body, and travel through its environment using magnetic fields.

A bacteria named Streptomyces hygroscopicus from Easter Island saves lives by preventing organ rejection and now may help curb Alzheimers.

Geobacter metallireducens is a bacterium eats or excretes pure electricity. If you stick an electrode in the ground and pass electrons down it, soon the electrode will be coated with feeding bacteria. Experiments show that these bacteria essentially eat or excrete electricity.

Because of different bacteria living on man/woman's body, man's sweat smells like cheese and woman's smells like onions.

Bacteria can absorb genetic material from dead bacteria and integrate them into their own genome. So if a bacterium eats the corpse of one which has adapted to colder temperatures, it will gain that resistance to cold as well.

In 2000, scientists were successfully able to revive bacteria (Bacillus strain 2-9-3) that had been lying dormant for nearly 250 million years.