At our honourable host D. Allan's suggestion, I'm going to kick in a little science each day (though readers of my blog will know I don't make it every single day). I've called it 'factoids' - which are basically facts separated from all their context - but in fact I'll try to give them enough context to make them meaningful and interesting. Others are very welcome to comment, or to contribute interesting factoids of their own... but I will be fact checking!

This should be fun!

We are outnumbered 10-fold in our own bodies by microorganisms. We have about 10^13 cells in our bodies, and about 10^14 bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms in and on us.

(Can't post a link or reference for this one because I heard it from a biologist at my university in conversation)

My oh my! Each one of us is a walking bio-environment! How does our personal populations compare with the population of our planet? Can you help this math-dunce? <:)

The (human) population of the planet is on the order of 10^10, so our personal bugatariums are 10,000 times more populous.

I think I have 10^5 bacteria congregating in my ears right now, making them hurt!

Ack, not good

/me sends Gail 10^6 virtual hugs

:)

Staying on the buggy tip for a while:

Scientists have only identified about 4,000 of the estimated 400,000 species of viruses in the world.

http://www.all-species.org/wsj_012202.html (from that well known scientific journal... the one from Wall Street)

(for those moments when we think most of the science is already done)

Insects rule : 950,000 identified out of 8 million estimated species. (same source)

I wonder how they compare in their populations: more viruses or more insects?