Our Bodies are Ecosystems

Discover Magazine: "Your Body's A Planet"

I've posted before about the bacteria and organisms living throughout our bodies, but it never stops amazing me how the body is mostly a vessel for an entire universe of living organisms.

90% of our mass supposedly consists of living microbes, viruses affect our DNA, and we cannot live without organisms like stomach bacteria. The idea of an independent 'self' is ultimately just that - an idea. Each person is really a system of symbiotic beings in constant interaction, on many different scales.

The amount of integration and effect that microscopic life has with us makes George Lucas's idea of Midichlorians not quite as stupid as I first thought...

Mmmmpph! Antibacterial soap... useless, it is!!!