The hidden kingdom of microscopic alien organisms shapes the universe as much as galaxies, stars, and planets; new discoveries reveal how bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms built life on Earth and influence humanity's future in the cosmos.
Thanks for watcing. Follow for more videos.
#cosmosspacescience
#howtheuniverseworks
#episode4
#season9
#cosmology
#astonomy
#microcosmos
#aliensofthemicrocosmos
#spacescience
#spacetime
#nasa
#space
#microscopicalien
#microscopicalienorganisms
#galaxies
#stars
#planets
#bacteria
Thanks for watcing. Follow for more videos.
#cosmosspacescience
#howtheuniverseworks
#episode4
#season9
#cosmology
#astonomy
#microcosmos
#aliensofthemicrocosmos
#spacescience
#spacetime
#nasa
#space
#microscopicalien
#microscopicalienorganisms
#galaxies
#stars
#planets
#bacteria
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00the universe vast dynamic and explosive but this huge cosmos with its billions of galaxies and
00:16countless stars isn't the only one we share our lives with another universe the world of
00:24the small of the viruses of the bacteria we call this strange hidden kingdom the microcosmos the
00:33microcosmos is incredibly important even though we can't see it it's everywhere it's almost like
00:39another universe or another world all in its own it guided our evolution we wouldn't be here without
00:46the microcosmos and it keeps us alive the microcosmos is responsible for the very oxygen
00:53that we breathe and it will influence our future as we venture out into space and if we were ever
01:00to find a place where there is life potentially a new microcosmos we would have no immunity if
01:08they're bad we share our world with the microcosmos will we coexist in an uneasy peace or will it destroy
01:18us
01:32a strange invisible assassin stalks its prey it attacks and hijacks the cell forcing it to produce
01:40hundreds of new raiders this is what happens when the microcosmos turns on us in 2020 we experienced
01:50this invasion of the body snatchers firsthand a tiny virus caused a global pandemic covid19
02:00this pandemic makes me see the world completely differently because there was an invisible universe
02:05one that covers me and is within me that i pretty much ignored for the most part
02:12maybe we ignore this other universe because it's invisible to the naked eye
02:17we live in a largely invisible universe we can't see everything that's going on some of the biggest
02:23stuff we can't see very well and in fact a lot of the littlest stuff we can't either just because
02:28something is too small to see doesn't mean it's not important in fact very very tiny things have a
02:35huge impact on our lives some of these impacts are beneficial but they're overshadowed by the
02:42devastating effects of disease the longest running conflict the humanity has been engaged in is that
02:51against the microcosmos our long-running battle against the bacteria and viruses that are trying
02:58to kill us a century ago we faced the spanish flu this absolutely annihilated europe at the time it
03:07caused millions upon millions of deaths so this is definitely not the first pandemic it quite frankly
03:12probably isn't the last one in a way the coronavirus has forced us to come to a greater understanding
03:18of the microscopic world the microcosmos is complex while some parts kill us others keep us alive the
03:28microcosmos is important for us to survive in order for us to to do all of the things that our body does
03:34in order for us to live and grow and thrive our lives depend on the microcosmos the air we breathe
03:41and the surface of the earth around us has been profoundly affected by the microcosmos
03:46the invisible microcosmos operates in every part of the world this world that you can't see is
03:54everywhere from geothermal hot springs to glaciers to deep sea hydrothermal vent systems
04:03we have discovered that every cubic foot of earth's atmosphere and its oceans contain millions of viruses
04:09there are more viruses here on earth than there are stars in the universe that's incredible even
04:19though they're around 1 400 the thickness of human hair stuck end to end all the viruses on earth would
04:27stretch 100 million light years that's 40 times the distance to our neighboring galaxy andromeda
04:34that really makes us ask whose planet is this anyway if you just added this up by sheer numbers
04:40you would say this is the virus planet the microcosmos has also taken over our bodies we're only partly
04:48human the fact that so little of my own body of everyone's body is as human cells kind of leaves
04:54you wondering what's the rest of it made of right it is astonishing that we share our bodies with over 380
05:00trillion viruses and over 39 trillion bacterial cells the average human has more bacterial cells
05:10inside their body than there are human cells inside their body so what are we really there are moments
05:17in the history of science that i actually remember where i was when they happened when for example we
05:22detected two colliding black holes or something like that but another one was when i realized that almost
05:28half our body is actually not human i mean that is crazy for people that are scared of bacteria that's
05:34a really interesting thing to know right bacteria help us digest food produce vitamins and even influence
05:43our mood but what are they bacteria are single-celled organisms with a cell wall and a central nucleus
05:53containing genetic material rna or dna they can move around and replicate viruses are completely different
06:05in the universe there are some mysteries that have actually personally made me kind of
06:09pause and give me goosebumps and strangely enough one of them is viruses the mystery is how viruses can
06:16have so much impact on the world despite their tiny size and apparent simplicity
06:24most are just a strand of genetic material sometimes encased in a shell of protein
06:31when compared to bacteria which behave kind of like other normal cells that we're used to
06:35to some degree viruses are very strange we don't really understand viruses we we don't even know if
06:43they're alive or not the question are viruses alive is actually more difficult to answer than you might
06:50think what is the definition of life what does it mean to be alive nasa's definition of life is a
06:58self-sustained chemical system capable of darwinian evolution entities that feed make energy and reproduce
07:06viruses viruses viruses viruses can't do that on their own they have to have a host cell to do that
07:12they have the genetic material that they need but none of the machinery so they really have to infect a
07:20host if not they're useless inside a host's body viruses latch onto the surface of cells
07:28and then take control a virus's life cycle is effectively to hack another cell they have to inject
07:38that genetic material into a living cell and then the cell is hijacked and starts making copies of the
07:43virus which then have to burst out of this cell almost literally like that gory grotesque scene in
07:51aliens they burst out from the inside that's like a cellular level horror movie
07:59this method of replicating is chilling and doesn't answer the question of whether they're alive
08:08that uncertainty may influence our search for life in space
08:14one of the interesting things to think about is if we found a virus on another planetary surface
08:20would we classify that as life would we say that we have found life we don't know but space
08:27viruses could be a sign of other extraterrestrial life forms viruses have to have a host cell to
08:33replicate so if you find a virus in essence you found life viruses might lead us to extraterrestrial
08:42life now new research suggests that life on earth may have come from space brought to us
08:50in a cosmic bombardment we find the microcosmos in every feature of earth but where did this strange
09:10kingdom of the very small come from some of its members are so weird they look like aliens could they
09:18have come from space there's this idea that microbes could have hitched a ride on a chunk of
09:24an asteroid that would fall to earth they could form on a different planet something hits that planet
09:30the rock that they're sitting on gets lifted and then hits the earth as a meteorite the idea of
09:36hitchhiking bugs sounds a bit wild but we have found chunks of mars on earth perhaps these space rocks brought
09:45to learn how we must return to the early solar system 4.5 billion years ago many infant planets orbit a new
09:53star our sun this infant solar system is chaotic collisions between planets are inevitable
09:59the early solar system was like a pinball machine stuff was hitting knocking stuff off that would land
10:13somewhere knock stuff off the young mars is in the line of fire it already has primitive oceans
10:19and perhaps primitive life a huge space rock smashes into the surface
10:37we call the event the borealis impact it blows quadrillion tons of rock into space
10:44it's not crazy to think that one of these chunks of rock traveling through our solar system has some
10:52hitchhikers on board if there's some microbe riding on an asteroid that got blasted off of mars
10:58kind of feel sorry for it right it's just living there on mars doing whatever little martian microbes do
11:04and then a giant impact ejects this thing into space
11:07in order to get from one planet to another a cell would have to run a gauntlet it's almost like
11:18winning a survival game show you've got to survive being blasted off your home world you've then got to
11:25survive the interplanetary journey inside a small lump of rock being exposed to the vacuum of outer space
11:33to cosmic rays to uv radiation being dried out and frozen so the idea of moving life around
11:41the solar system or throughout around the galaxy on asteroids poses a lot of different challenges
11:48events like the borealis impact ejected so much rock from mars there were lots of opportunities for
11:54hitchhiking bugs to run the gauntlet of space but could they survive the journey
12:00to find out astronauts on the international space station grew simple bacteria outside in space
12:12after a year of being in open space miraculously some of these microbes survived it's incredible
12:21these microbes just could not be killed even though they were in the worst possible environment for life
12:26the mission therefore shows us that life can survive the environment and outer space life can be
12:35transferred between planets maybe life did get started on mars on our next door neighbor planet and then
12:43was transferred here inside a meteorite maybe we are immigrants from mars hitchhiking bugs may have
12:52arrived on earth and kick-started the microcosmos but now recent studies of meteorites suggest that even
13:00if living microbes didn't make the journey the building blocks that made them did
13:08in november 2019 an international research team found an organic molecule called ribose
13:15in meteorites that had crashed on earth ribose is a sugar it's a simple sugar
13:23but it is a sugar that is absolutely crucial to all life on earth ribose is the sugar that makes up
13:33rna and rna sits right in the linchpin of every cell rna is a simple form of genetic material that controls
13:44cellular function it's found in most primitive creatures finding ribose on a meteorite is so
13:53important for us to understand the origins of the microcosmos because these are the building blocks
13:59these are the things that it needs to get started so understanding where these building blocks come from
14:06allows us to understand how the microcosmos might have evolved and started the rosetta mission found
14:16another building block for life out in space a form of phosphorus on the comet 67p this was astounding
14:25comet 67p was formed at the birth of the solar system 4.67 billion years ago and it hasn't changed since
14:33then it's a time capsule from the birth of the sun and the planets and it's been in the deep freeze
14:40ever since so these forms of phosphorus that we found on comet 67p tell us what was available at the
14:48time the earth was forming and then when life was getting started on primordial earth the early solar
14:55system contained many chemicals needed for life it's an important discovery because it means that these
15:02compounds were around when the solar system was forming so they would have been readily available
15:07for life to tap into and use to start forming cellular structure these discoveries not only show
15:15that essential chemicals came to earth but that they exist throughout the solar system we tend to think
15:22of the microcosmos as only existing on earth in the sense that only earth has these building blocks but
15:28now these new observations suggest that the microcosmos at least the building blocks for one
15:34could exist beyond earth and throughout the solar system comets and asteroids may have brought
15:40chemicals to kick-start the microcosmos now explosive new research suggests that space rocks hitting earth
15:50did even more could the violent impacts themselves have helped life get started
16:12how did the microcosmos and life on earth start did asteroids and comets deliver the building blocks
16:20phosphorus ribose and other organic compounds or did they start life in other ways new research
16:28suggests the impact of crashing space rocks could have provided the spark for life the force of the impact
16:36actually triggered the creation of these molecules that are the building blocks of life
16:40the energy from the impact breaks down and reforms molecules into new compounds you can actually strip
16:52apart atoms and molecules recombine them in more complex ways and make the stuff of life in an impact
17:00over millions of years complex organic materials fill earth's oceans
17:04then around 3.5 billion years ago the process that kick-started life began going back to the origins
17:15of life on earth it was a process you began with large molecules that almost accidentally began to make
17:21copies of themselves these became the first genetic material some of these larger molecules bound together and
17:28became the first sort of protocells a protocell could represent this earliest pre-life stage of evolution
17:41protocells lack the full chemical machinery of modern cells
17:46they're a simple cell membrane surrounding a glob of genetic material like rna built from ribose and phosphorus
17:54now you have a barrier now you can actually control which chemicals come into the cell and which go out
18:02and you protect the genetic code intact inside the cell once that happened evolution began to run with it
18:11these simple cells grew more and more complicated until shazam you get all life on earth
18:19all cellular life anyway unlike bacteria viruses are not cells scientists debate if they're even
18:29living things so how then do viruses fit into the birth of life viruses aren't really thought of as
18:36playing a role in our evolutionary history but we're just beginning to understand that that's simply not the case
18:42what if viruses themselves were an essential cog in the machinery of life how can we investigate if
18:50viruses helped life on earth develop they don't leave many clues about their past the hard thing with
18:58understanding the evolutionary history of viruses is they don't leave a fossil record there's no geology that
19:06we can go back and dig up and say aha this is when viruses first came about we don't know when viruses entered
19:15the evolutionary game of life was it near the beginning or a little bit later there's this crazy idea that
19:23viruses might actually have come first in the tree of life when you think about the real origins of life
19:30it had to start with something that simple something that was just a molecule that could start
19:34replicating a virus may be our best example of that transition from just complex chemistry to the
19:41beginnings of life in this scenario chemicals floating in the three and a half billion year old oceans
19:49formed a shell of protein around some simple genetic material but did viruses evolve before anything else
19:59the flaw in the virus first hypothesis is that a virus has to have a host organism to replicate so without
20:08a host how does the virus replicate and this is the question we have to ask ourselves when we think of
20:15viruses coming first on the evolutionary tree modern viruses can't replicate without a host
20:21it's likely that ancient viruses couldn't either but could early cells and viruses have joined forces
20:31in a way that benefited them both some new theories are suggesting that viruses in cellular life co-evolved
20:39and actually helped each other out and potentially even helped out the evolution of human life
20:46how did this co-evolution work we know that viruses today inject their genetic material into cells to
20:54manipulate them perhaps early viruses manipulated the genes of the first cells the same way think of
21:03this primordial soup and the genes the rna that's in this primordial soup being swapped between organisms
21:11kind of like a swap meet you bring something you don't need anymore and you pass along to somebody
21:15else so in this way organisms sharing their genetic material back and forth offers a competitive advantage
21:22to each one the virus might break off bits of the host's genetic material and mix it with their own
21:31when the virus attacks another cell it could pass on the mixed genes to its next host
21:36in this sense then viruses help stir things up they shuttle genes between widely different organisms
21:48and therefore help drive evolution itself now probably almost all of these injections did nothing
21:54useful or maybe even killed the cell but if one in a million injection changed something for the better
22:00made it more complex made it more able to survive then that cell reproduced even more
22:06if virally enhanced cells thrived in the primeval oceans over time they might have evolved into more
22:13complex creatures and eventually into us what's so crazy is to think about the fact that we could
22:20actually be descended from viruses i am sure that a lot of my genetic code originally came from the
22:26injection of a virus i love the idea that i might be descendant from a virus just coming from something
22:33that simple and evolving into something this complex is just a feat of nature viruses played a major part
22:41in human evolution around eight percent of human dna came from ancient viral infections in fact without them
22:50we wouldn't be human in our brains we actually have relic viral dna so dna that came from a virus but this
23:00helps us without this we don't think we would have consciousness we also think that viral dna helped
23:08us develop an immune system to fight off infection and gave us the ability to digest starch
23:17the microcosmos has guided our evolution it even created the air we breathe
23:23but in doing so it also triggered the largest mass extinction the earth has ever seen
23:29planet earth 2.5 billion years ago the microcosmos colonizes earth's oceans this is not a world
23:51we would recognize today if you were to travel back in time just on earth to see what it was like
23:582.5 billion years ago it would look really different in many ways there were oceans and they had life
24:05in those oceans but there weren't any land plants or land animals it was just bare rock so to think
24:13about a human going back in time to visit the really early earth they would find an utterly inhospitable
24:18planet as a human you'd be out of luck because there was no oxygen in the atmosphere at that time so
24:24hopefully you brought a space suit the atmosphere was fine for the billions of inhabitants of the early
24:31microcosmos they were very slow paced and they did everything they did without any oxygen in the air
24:39but this tranquil existence was about to change for a long time conditions on earth were fairly static
24:46but then about two and a half billion years ago an evolutionary glitch changed everything
24:53a clue to that glitch rests in strange rocky mounds stromatolites
25:01stromatolites are almost like microbial cities if you zoom down onto their scale you'll see layer upon layer
25:11of bacteria almost like the high rise skyscrapers one of our cities the microcosmic high rises are full of cyanobacteria
25:23these bacteria can photosynthesize photosynthesis is a chemical reaction that takes place inside a plant
25:32producing food today it's an important part of our planet's existence
25:37two and a half billion years ago it was revolutionary and it happened when ancient cyanobacteria similar to
25:47those in the stromatolites mutated this mutation allowed cyanobacteria to take the energy from sunlight
25:55and use it to make sugars out of water and carbon dioxide this gave cyanobacteria a huge evolutionary edge
26:04they could now make more energy for themselves so they could grow and reproduce faster for everything
26:12else it was a catastrophe it produced oxygen as a waste product oxygen was no use to them so they
26:20released it into the air transforming earth's atmosphere over millions of years this byproduct
26:28oxygen is extremely toxic the reason oxygen is so dangerous is that it's very reactive it loves to
26:35combine with everything so think about something rusting iron rusts because oxygen is actually combining
26:42with the molecules it's called oxidation so when oxygen was first released it was tremendously dangerous
26:49the new oxygen built up in the atmosphere killing off species of microbes everywhere on the planet
26:56right when this happened you would have had a mass extinction this would have been a global mass
27:03extinction event this was an unprecedented environmental disaster probably in the entire
27:10history of the earth up to that point and i'm not even sure it's been paralleled even up to today
27:15this may have been the single biggest catastrophe in our planet's history this was the great oxidation
27:21event and it changed our our atmosphere it changed our planet and it didn't just end there something
27:28changed again another mutation allowed some of these bacteria to use that oxygen in their own metabolism
27:36and that was a huge change the ability to use oxygen was an incredible leap forward
27:44the beauty of oxygen is that it allows a metabolism to process nutrients much more rapidly it basically
27:54helps bodies burn these materials so that they can generate a lot more energy a lot more quickly
28:00organisms that figured out how to use oxygen for respiration ended up getting a huge kick start of
28:06energy and gave them a huge advantage over other organisms it supplied enough energy that organisms
28:13could become more complex larger multicellular really the tapping into oxygen and being able to use
28:22oxygen in our metabolism meant that it was a game changer that we could evolve in ways that never would
28:29have been possible without cyanobacteria simple organisms became more complex single-celled creatures became
28:39multicellular this gradual accumulation of oxygen into the atmosphere of the earth was huge for the multicellular
28:47animal and life explosion that occurred as a result and was one of the most important events in earth's history
28:54this would have been a complete transformation of the earth's atmosphere and physical setting
29:00this is when the green earth started to evolve
29:03the great oxidation event changed the course of evolution leading to our complex world
29:12it is really hard to overemphasize the importance of the microcosmos just the fact that i'm speaking to
29:17you i'm breathing in and out i wouldn't be doing that without the tiniest organisms on the planet
29:23the microcosmos gave us life now it could wipe us out global warming is releasing potentially lethal bacteria
29:33and viruses are we facing a microcosmic zombie apocalypse
29:40as that permafrost begins thawing out and melting with climate change maybe that will release
30:08pathogens that have been locked up for potentially thousands of years
30:13in 2014 researchers investigated melting siberian tundra
30:19a region larger than the usa
30:23i've seen a lot of science fiction movies where scientists are digging around in the ice and find
30:26something bad from a long time ago scientists took samples of tundra soil to the lab and examined the
30:33contents they found a frozen ancient virus a virus locked in ice from over 30 000 years ago
30:45isn't this the start of like every horror movie a scientist uncover some deep secret of nature and then
30:52just open it up and unleash it on the world
30:56just like in a b movie the team fed the virus to living single-celled creatures called amoebas
31:04to see if the virus still functioned after being frozen for thousands of years
31:09the virus woke up attacked the amoebas and replicated bringing this ancient virus back to life was sort of waking up the undead
31:22scientists had no idea how this zombie virus would behave
31:31something about it was very very different it was huge compared to normal viruses
31:37it was substantially larger than any virus that we had seen before this is the goliath of goliaths among viruses
31:50so large it looks more like bacteria than a virus we call these kinds of giant viruses
31:57meme viruses because they mimic other creatures like bacteria
32:02bacteria one way the virus mimics bacteria is in the amount of its genetic material it has 900 genes
32:11eight times as many as a regular virus viruses are very simple they don't require a lot of genes to function
32:20but this virus has more genes than necessary what is it doing with all these extra genes
32:29we have now found other mimiviruses 20 years ago we had no idea that this complex type of virus even existed
32:39we still don't know what all the extra genes do this type of virus might even be able to generate
32:47its own energy making it closer to bacteria than other viruses
32:51because it has so many extra genes this is a virus that is not acting like a virus
33:00we can't be sure how the siberian mimivirus will behave if released
33:06and even if it only attacks amoebas there could be other large complex viruses buried in the ice
33:13they may not be so safe we know that there are large regions of the earth that are locked in ice right
33:22now there could be viruses that live inside that ice that if the earth gets too warm could reactivate
33:32and these viruses could potentially be a threat to us
33:36we tend to think of people who died in the past as not being able to affect us at all right they're
33:50gone their germs are gone uh unfortunately this isn't exactly true so for people who were buried
33:56in tundra that's been frozen they never really disappeared and now unfortunately as the climate warms
34:03these tundra environments are releasing frozen people and animals who died thousands of years ago
34:13but it's not the dead people and animals that threaten us it's the microbes inside them
34:20in 2016 that threat became real when another area of siberia thawed
34:27a 12 year old boy died and dozens of people needed medical treatment
34:312 000 reindeer also perished the culprit reanimated bacteria called anthrax inside a melting reindeer
34:43anthrax is a common microbe found in soil in medieval times sometimes farmers would come
34:52back to find entire fields of dead animals they didn't understand at the time what was going on
34:57they attribute it to cursed fields but we now know these are outbreaks of anthrax the defrosted reindeer
35:07died nearly a century ago the anthrax that killed it was safely locked away in the ice
35:15the thawing out of regions like the siberian permafrost could be almost like the inadvertent opening
35:24of pandora's box once you open it you don't know what's going to come out it could be releasing
35:31ancient preserved microbes bacteria or viruses that have been laying dormant for hundreds if not
35:40thousands of years if these microbes are actually very different from what we have on earth today
35:47if we encountered these microbes it's not really clear what would happen with our immune systems you
35:53know it could be totally fine but it could also wreak complete havoc on us it's also not clear if
36:01modern drugs would help us beat any ancient microbes we unleash now as humanity expands beyond earth to new
36:11worlds will we carry our microcosmos with us into space or have we already infected our cosmic neighborhood
36:23space is no longer the final frontier of the future we're already exploring the solar system
36:39we've sent probes to the planets and put boots on the moon now nasa plans to land astronauts on mars by the
36:482030s as a science fiction nerd myself without even breaking a sweat i could name 10 movies where
36:57people go to another planet and some disease some alien life form is unleashed on humans and kills us all
37:03i think that has it exactly backwards if we try to settle on other planets we have to be really really
37:09careful and really really think about how we are affecting them as we launch more and more missions
37:16into space we risk sending earth's microcosmos with them endangering the health of the solar system
37:24and if we find a planet that actually has its own biosphere that has life of its own we need to be
37:30very careful about how we introduce our microbes to their microbes because it could really be catastrophic
37:36for them it's serious because we're looking at places like mars like titan saturn's moon like comets
37:43where life or at least prebiotic life could have existed or in the past there could have been a much
37:49more habitable environment so it's entirely possible that we are polluting we are infecting these other
37:58objects with our own bacteria if we contaminate a pristine world we won't know which microbes were there
38:06first our bugs could even kill off the native ones it may have already happened
38:16you're looking good the apollo 12 mission brought back bits of the lunar robotic probe surveyor 3 it
38:23found on the moon analysis of the probe found a bacterial contamination we don't know where it came from
38:32if that thing was infected before we sent it to the moon and it sat on the moon's surface for two years
38:37in a vacuum changing temperatures radiation from space that really is telling us that we can infect
38:43other planets and we should take this very seriously we're ramping up our space missions we're sending
38:51probe after probe uh to to planets all throughout the solar system taking care to not send our own
38:59diseases out onto other planets is something we actually have to care about nasa does care
39:06before launching a new probe a planetary protection team deep cleans every inch
39:13you try to bake the spacecraft you try to disinfect things you build everything and keep everything
39:18within a clean room which has a pressure that blows dust out everybody wears what are called bunny suits
39:26so nobody touches anything directly but then that's still not enough because microbes are incredibly
39:32hardy it's even more difficult to kill microcosmic stowaways if they're traveling inside an astronaut
39:40in the not too distant future we'll start sending not robot explorers not probes to mars
39:46but people an inherently dirty mucky organism like like myself you can't sterilize a human you can't remove
39:57all bacteria we have to realize that we are bringing the microcosmos with us and we may change worlds
40:03entirely without even noticing it potentially our impact could be absolutely devastating on on worlds
40:09that are either have life or emerging life and so we just need to take that responsibility seriously and be
40:15careful with the way in which we explore them humans bear a responsibility for the safety of the cosmos
40:22our track record on earth isn't good when we look at the pattern of exploration or colonization that we
40:29use as humans we are really invasive we see a lot of destruction in our path and we have to wonder if
40:36that's what we're going to do when we start to really explore and colonize outside of earth
40:41like viruses we also insist on spreading we insist on spreading around our world around our solar system
40:48there is a great chance that we will cause utter destruction wherever we go
40:54our relationship with the microcosmos is complicated
40:59it's killed millions of people but without it we wouldn't be here
41:04this time we're living in is really causing us to reflect on the microcosmos the better we understand
41:10these microorganisms the better able we are to deal with what's happening today
41:15the coronavirus crisis reminds us we need to respect the world we cannot see and recognize that the
41:21microcosmos is every bit as important to us as the greater universe it's so easy especially right now in
41:29history to hear the word virus and think about how harmful they are how dangerous they are but
41:34remember that you are actually a creature built of viruses yourself as far as we know we've never
41:39been without the microcosmos microbes were here before us they'll probably be here after us and we need them
41:46to live the microcosmos it's absolutely essential we couldn't function we wouldn't survive we wouldn't be
41:54here without it but it's also our greatest ally and it's also our greatest enemy