FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL

At about 5 million trillion trillion strong, bacteria and their cousins, the archaea, vastly out number all other life-forms on earth.

There are always more on the way. Pseudomonas natruegens, an ocean-dwelling baterium, can go from birth to reproduction in 10 minutes flat. In five hours a single cell could theoretically give rise to more than 1 billion offspring.

Your body has 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells.

Whipping their tails, E. coli can travel 25 times their own length in 1 second, equivalent to a horse running 135 miles per hour.

from Discover magazine, December 2008