“‘The human we see in the mirror is made up of more microbes than human,’ said Lita Proctor of the National Institutes of Health, who’s leading the Human Microbiome Project.”
Read that quote again. I am not exactly sure what she is trying to say. I think what she is meaning to say is that there are more microbe entities than human cells.
Or is she implying that pound for pound, there is more microbe mass than human mass in and on me?
Other sites validate the former. I have a hard time believing the latter.
Ok. So I was right. The journalist probably just did what journalist do - completely bungle the meaning of any quote or concept even slightly scientific.
There’s an error if they are including viruses in the total of cells, since viruses are non-cellular.
As has been said, our bodies contain many more bacterial cells than human cells. However, the bacterial cells make up only a small percentage of our weight.
In the quote in your second post, they are in fact comparing the number of human cells to the number of microbe cells, and even if you count viruses as “microbes” they don’t have cells.
ROFL! There’s nothing more amusing for the sarcasm-deficient than watching two dry-humour types reduced to fisticuffs because neither can recognize the other’s attempt to joke.
