[djf]

But it’s dwarfed by something else.

A couple grad students wanted to find out how many different bacteria were in one CC of sea water. They guesstimated maybe a thousand or so,

Last I read, they were up to 25,000 plus and still counting. Probably a good number never before even cataloged in bacteriology.

[aruanan]

A couple grad students wanted to find out how many different bacteria were in one CC of sea water. They guesstimated maybe a thousand or so,

I think that was the number of viruses in sea water.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Here's a good start.

[muawiyah]

Determining the number of different viruses in seawater is a quite serious occupation these days.

There are MILLIONS.

It's like the ocean is just full of loose genes that may have purposes.

I've suggested many times that there are probably the instruction set for intergalactic space cruisers out there and all we have to do is figure out how to put them to work.

The fellow who was the first to get through the human genome project, John Craig Venter, has a foundation that's work finding the viruses and bacteria we need ~ another project is to create an artificial life-form into which we can stick the virus and bacteria genes to see what they are supposed to do.