You are Your Bacteria

You have 30,000 genes but you have 3 million bacterial genes! You have 1 trillion human cells inside you but 10 trillion bacterial cells inside you. The bacteria keep you alive, they protect you, they help digest your food.

Bottom line: You are 1% human!

Here is a talk by Bonnie Bassler at a TED Conference where she talks about the ability of bacteria to communicate with each other. She works on the so-called quorum sensing that lets free floating bacteria act cooperatively. Yes... bacteria have "group behaviours"! Bacteria virulence is in fact a group behaviour!