the.com/microbiology
the study of things too small to see but big enough to kill you
means The branch of biology that studies microscopic organisms — bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, and the like — too tiny to see with the naked eye.
from Built entirely from Greek pieces: 'mikros' (small), 'bios' (life), and '-logia' (the study of) — literally 'the study of small life.' The roots are ancient, but the assembled word is a young one, a product of the 19th century when improved microscopes finally let scientists like Pasteur and Koch glimpse the invisible living world that had been quietly shaping — and ending — human lives all along. The 'bio' here is the same one lurking in biology and biography; the 'micro' the same that shrinks your microscope and your microwave.
- body count
- Your microbes outnumber your own cells
- founder
- Leeuwenhoek spotted bacteria via homemade lenses, 1670s
- extremophiles
- Some microbes thrive in boiling acid
- genome share
- Gut bacteria carry 150x your gene count
- oxygen origin
- Cyanobacteria gave Earth breathable air
fleming's penicillin discovery — alexander fleming found penicillin in 1928 when mold contaminated his petri dish at st. mary's hospital, london
pasteur's germ theory — louis pasteur proved microorganisms cause disease through experiments with swan-neck flasks in 1859
leeuwenhoek's animalcules — antonie van leeuwenhoek first observed bacteria and protozoa using a homemade microscope in the 1670s