A series of groundbreaking studies have revealed that what we have always thought of as individuals are actually "biomolecular networks" that consist of visible hosts plus millions of invisible microbes that have a significant effect on how the host develops, the diseases it catches, how it behaves and possibly even its social interactions.
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In this case, the parts are the host and its genome plus the thousands of different species of bacteria living in or on the host, along with all their genomes, collectively known as the microbiome. (The host is something like the tip of the iceberg while the bacteria are like the part of the iceberg that is underwater: Nine out of every 10 cells in plant and animal bodies are bacterial. But bacterial cells are so much smaller than host cells that they have generally gone unnoticed.)Microbiologists have coined new terms for these collective entities -- holobiont -- and for their genomes -- hologenome. "These terms are needed to define the assemblage of organisms that makes up the so-called individual," said Bordenstein.
There may really be something to this. Other recent research has focused on the role that microflora play in obesity and other aspects of human health. What do you fellow "holobionts" say, does it disturb or comfort you to think of yourselves as a walking constellation of bacteria?
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Saturday August 22 2015, @11:50PM
It's just like companies. Decades ago, we used to refer to a company as a singular entity: "Ford is an car company", etc.
"Ford is an car company"? The last time I heard "an" used before a consonant sound was the "an hero" meme [knowyourmeme.com] of someone driven to suicide. In the 2008 US auto industry crisis, that arguably described GM and Chrysler, but not Ford, which didn't need to take a dime of U.S. Government bridge loans.
However, these days, everyone nows refers to corporations as a collective and uses plural pronouns: "Ford are a car company".
"nows"?
It appears to be a usage difference between American English, Australian English, and New Zealand English [onlinegrammar.com.au], which use "Ford is", and British English [stackexchange.com], which uses "Ford are".