Last week’s thought concerned what we are
composed of from the standpoint of chemical mass. Water is
the most abundant chemical compound in human cells (65-90% of each cell). Most
(not all) water molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom,
but the mass of each oxygen atom is much higher than the combined mass of the
hydrogen atoms. Six elements account for 99% of the mass of the human body (and
most other animals too): oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and
phosphorus. This is easy to understand since YHWH made us all from the same
stuff.
We when look at
what we are composed of numerically we find a very different story. There are
many species of bacteria and other microorganisms that live on or inside our
body. In fact, 90% (by number) of the cells in or on our body are microbes.
Some of these are necessary for our health - people have actually died because
modern antibiotics have killed off too many of their digestive bacteria. Those
that neither help nor harm us are called commensal organisms. There are about 10 times more bacterial cells in our
body than human cells. Again, no surprise since we were made from the dust of
the Earth - which is packed full of microbes.
There
is also an estimated 100 times more microbial genes than human genes in our
human genome. A handful of human genes (the consensus today
is around 40) appear to be bacterial in origin. How
and why are they there? Some scientists say the bacteria are fairly recently in
evolutionary history, because the genes are not found in our closest
animal ancestors. Others say they are ancient relics from evolutionary events
that took place long ago and, for reasons unknown, the genes were lost
in these ancestors.
Bottom
line is that science really has no answer. YHWH does!
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