Did you know? The number of bacteria in just a drop of seawater is enormous – between 2,500 and 350,000. That means there are an estimated 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (billions of trillion) bacteria in the sea. The number of stars in the universe is dwarfed by comparison (you would need to take away 8 zeros). The microbes in ocean water look like “stars in the night” under a microscope (as you can see in this post’s photo). They dominate the ocean and the Earth. Most of the oxygen we breathe comes from marine bacteria, and oceanic life could not survive without them. Fish cannot survive and maintain good health in an aquarium without these beneficial bacteria living in their water and environment.

The same is true for all life forms on Earth also, as beneficial bacteria live in and on every single part of an organism. Human beings, for example, are 90% microbial and only 10% human. The average human body contains “trillions of beneficial bacteria” inside and out. Scientists have discovered that many illnesses are linked to a damaged or compromised bacteria population within our bodies due to sanitation and some medicine. These scientists, along with many doctors, believe that we need to focus more on synchronizing with good bacteria rather than killing them, as bad bacteria cannot flourish and survive in alkaline environments consisting of large populations of beneficial bacteria strains. Therefore, it is very important for us to maintain a healthy microbial ecosystem both inside and outside of our bodies.