• Question: Why are there germs?

    Asked by supercookieninja to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 24 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      The first life on Earth was germ-like – bacteria are single cells, which are simpler than complex animals like humans. So they evolved first.

      As for why germs exist that make people sick – life is good at changing and adapting to find new ways to survive and reproduce (which is what evolution is). Humans are full of energy and cells, so germs can live in them easily. When they reproduce too much they can hurt or kill the person they’re living in by destroying parts of the body. This is why we have white blood cells – to protect us from germs reproducing too much and hurting us.

    • Photo: Claire Lee

      Claire Lee answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Germs are purely just other life forms trying to stay alive and make it through this harsh world (much like us!)

      Our “perfect habitat” is a nice, comfortable house, maybe somewhere warm like near a beach, with readily available fresh air, food and water. Ditto for germs, though they don’t build houses, they just live somewhere like one, though also where food, oxygen, etc is available.

      Some germs are really good at living inside us, and they help us out: there are bacteria in your stomach, for example, that help you digest your food in return for a nice place to live. Others are more scumbag-y – they just come into our place, use all our food, mess the place up, and leave their rubbish everywhere, and as such we lose out and start to feel sick. So we have to send a team to evict them, which usually results in a bit of a fight. (Our white blood cells are our “eviction team” and the fight is often a fever).

      Scumbag germs really are scumbags though because obviously it makes no sense to destroy the nice place you’re living in. Then again, a lot of humans are scumbags too….

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