Our world is somewhat germphobic The media cover new outbrea

Our world is somewhat “germ-phobic”. The media cover new outbreaks of diseases, we eagerly await new antibacterial and antiviral medicines, and we hear of new ways to “fight germs”. But suppose there were no microbes to contend with. What do you suppose life would be like?

Solution

We often use the the term \'germ\' instead of microbes. But we need to understand that all microbes are ot germs. very few percentage of total microbial population is pathogenic in nature. Most of the microbes either are useful to us in some or the other way or do not harm us at all.

Microbes, the term may include bacteria, viruses, fungi and even protists. They play an extremely importan role in maintenance of ecosystem, like fixing of nitrogen gas, oxygen, carbondioxide. They also brong about natural decomposition of organic waste. Useful bacteria in out gut, keeps our digestive system healthy too (gut microbiome!). Microbes also play a major role in food preparation and beverage manufacturing like in making of bread, curd, wine and alcohol etc. They are sometimes used as \'chemical factories\' for fast synthesis of flavoring agents, ethanol, emulcification agents, even various vaccines preparation (in phamaceutical industries), metal leaching (bio-mining). Infact these days, microbes have been increasingly used for production of bio-alcohols, bio-oils, and bio-disels to replace the conventional fuels!

With such an important and diverse role of microbes, it would be difficult for us to survive in a world without microbes. Louis Pasteur once said that \"Life would not long remain possible in the absence of microbes\".