• Question: what is bactira

    Asked by anon-265275 on 18 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 18 Nov 2020: last edited 18 Nov 2020 5:16 pm

      baceria are teeny tiny single-cell organisms (living things) which live everywhere- from your skin to the inside of volcanos. Some bacteria are helpful, some make us sick, and some completely ignore us!

    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 19 Nov 2020:

      Bacteria are cells, we are made from living cells. Like Kirsty said, bacteria are just one cell living as an organism. Whereas we are made from loads of different types of cells. We do have a lot of bits in our cells that are similar to bacteria cells though!

    • Photo: Christopher Marriott

      Christopher Marriott answered on 19 Nov 2020:

      Kirsty and Joanna have answered this very well already, but I thought I’d give you a little extra fact about bacteria too. There are actually more bacteria cells in your body than human cells! This is because you have a lot of bacteria in your intestines (the part of your digestive system after your stomach) which help to break down the food you’ve eaten so your body can use all of the energy, vitamins and other good stuff that the food has in it. These are an example of the helpful cells that Kirsty mentioned!

      Other bacteria are really quite nasty, and can cause you to get sick. One of the first vaccines given to children in the UK is the 6-in-1 vaccine which protects from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. These 3 diseases are all caused by bad bacteria getting into our body and harming us, and the vaccine helps to train our immune systems to beat the bacteria.

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