When we think about bacteria, the next thing that comes into our mid is the microscope. Bacteria are known to be found everywhere and even inside our very own body! A bacterium is a single celled microorganism or unicellular. There shape varies from a sphere, a rod or even spiral. They are only very small, no more than a few micrometers in their length. Bacteria may or may not cause a disease, especially the normal flora inside our body as long as they do not over populate or colonize the area where they live and as long as they live peacefully with the other resident micro flora in our body, it is okay and we would still be fine. Like the Escherichia coli or more commonly known as E. coli, it live in our intestines and were still fine, but when the E. coli reaches our urinary tract, it can already cause an infection because E. coli is not a normal flora in the urinary tract. There are studies shown that there are ten times more bacterial cells than human cells in a human body, with most of them located in the digestive tract and the skin area of the body.

The study of these bacteria leads us to bacteriology which is a branch of a bigger study of microorganisms or microbiology. Bacteria are often cultured in the laboratories for bacteriologist to study, observe and find ways to use or work against the different diseases that these bacteria may cause. Bacterial diseases are often infectious and some of them are anthrax, leprosy, cholera and syphilis to name a few. Bacterial cells are different from animal cells especially when you are the one observing the bacteria under a microscope because you can see that a bacterium has no nucleus which is why they are known as prokaryotes. So if you want to learn more about bacteria, just flip on the pages of this site.