Bacteria, single cell organisms and other tiny things have been plaguing the human race right from its existence. Not all of us are effected the same way. Take this one person that I know that thinks nothing of eating a month old chicken sandwich, or roast beef that is about the same age, among many other food items. He never gets sick from this stuff, which is potent enough to send the rest of us in the bathroom for an all night session. Believe me when I tell you that as far as I am concerned, food poisoning is like dying, at least you feel that way. The world we live in is filled with these tiny beasties and all of us carry some of them within us. We tend to think of them as mostly bad, but this certainly isn't the case. We are finding out many different things about these things and the more we find out, the more uses we find for them.

We know that these tiny microscopic things are now being bred to eat oil. They are spread on the water when an oil spill takes place and they aid in getting rid of it. One of these products is Micro-Blaze Emergency Liquid Spill Control. In this product there are about 400 billion microbes in one gallon of it. It turns out that these microbes can consume a gallon of oil pretty quick if it is spread thin on top of the water, but it would take a lot longer if the oil was concentrated in a one gallon can for example. Some people have worried that dumping oil eating microbes into spills would allow them to seep into the ground and eat the oil reserves, but the companies assure us that this can not happen because the conditions are not right for this to happen. There is not enough oxygen down there in all this concentrated oil for this to happen, all the companies state. I can't help but wonder however, what the effect is to the water when we dump billions of these microbes into it? As a wise man once said, “it can't do you any good.” Another thing that scientists always worry about is mutations. The scientists at these companies claim that this can not happen because there is not enough food to support the microbes after they eat the oil, so they will begin to die out until they have low numbers or return to their spore state.

In some medical circles, physicians and scientists believe that microbes are the future of medicine. Yes you heard me right. Even though they are also the scourge of it right now, it is being predicted that they will land up being a boon to the medical community and thus extremely helpful in killing diseases. Let me name just a few of the diseases that scientists are hoping that they will be able to cure with the use of the correct microbes. We are talking about eczema, diarrhea and autoimmune disorders, but there are many other diseases that the medical profession believes can be cured with microbes, using them on both humans and animals. A representative of the Food and Drug Administration said, "Theoretically, beneficial microorganisms could be used to treat a range of clinical conditions that have been linked to pathogens, including gastrointestinal problems like irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease, oral diseases like tooth decay and periodontal disease, and various other infections, including vaginal infections and possibly skin infections. Probiotics could also conceivably be put to use in preventing disease or thwarting autoimmune disorders. A number of these possibilities are being explored in research labs and hospitals around the world,"

I know that I have seen a lot of Scifi movies about mutating microbes and I know that bad ones mutate, so I can't help but wonder what we would get if a good one mutates that was injected into our body? Will we turn into some hideous creature with extra arms and legs because our genetic code has been altered by some angry microbe? I think that using microbes is more that just finding ones that are beneficial. It looks to me and I know what you are thinking, what does he know? In my humble experience of reading about these things, it looks to me that some sort of safeguard has to be implemented to stop the microbes from mutating into microbes that are harmful. It is not as if this mutating is unprecedented, it happens all the time with diseases and infections, that is why it is so hard to cure some of these things. Right now Staph Infection, the type of infection that is brought back from a hospital stay, is almost incurable because the microbes have become immune to antibiotics. This has happened because they mutated to a form that was different from their original form that could be treated.

New microbes have just been discovered that eat radiation and destroy it. Geobacter sulfurreducens is the name of this miracle microbe and it just might turn out to be the savior of the human race as we pollute ourselves with more and more radioactive waste. These little critters are hungry and their diet consists of the most dangerous stuff on earth. Will these microbes be able to clean up the mess that we have made? I am not sure if they could clean up the real heavy stuff, but given the time and a large amount of these microbes anything is possible. The lighter stuff, like medical waste and radioactive water is a given. It also might turn out that these microbes might just be the basis for a new longer lasting battery as some scientists suggest. If you feed these microbes cellulose they give off electricity. Isn't nature wonderful?

When we talk about microbes, we can not forget the entire category of nanobots. These are tiny microscopic machines that are currently being worked on in labs all around the world. One could say that it just might be that nanobots will even be more useful than real microbes. They will not be built with the ability to mutate, unless it is purposeful for some direct use, which I can not think of right at this minute, but I am sure there would be uses for this in industry and maybe in medicine also. If we use these tiny microscopic machines for medicine, one of the uses that has already been put forth was using them to eat cancer cells. They would be programmed to be attracted to these type of cells and eliminate them. One of the advantages of this type of action would be that it would eliminate the use of radiation to kill cancer cells and would be a lot more specific in the cells that it goes after. It might be possible in the future, to just get a shot if cancer is detected. The shot would be composed of nanobots which eliminate the cancer cells and then leave our bodies by way of the rectum during normal bodily functions. If this works, it certainly would usher in the golden age of medicine. Many other diseases could be cured this way also. Genetic diseases could be cured by repairing the genes with these tiny machines, thus ensuring a long life for everyone.

Many think that our future health rests with microscopics, whether it be in microbes, nanobots or a combination of both. There is no way to know right now if they are correct. Certainly there will be some uses for this technology, as far as keeping us healthy goes. The problem is that it is impossible to predict what new technologies will come along. There could be some sort of breakthrough that might just turn out to be even better. Right now, better and better diagnostic machines are coming out. Along with these new diagnostic wonders are new types of radiation machines such as the Cyberknife that pinpoints cancer cells without taking out a lot of the surrounding area. It has already been credited with saving many lives. I have to wonder what will appear on the horizon next?