(Thinking Like a Plague) 1. Microbe-botherers

This is an updated, written version of the first lesson of the first online Microanimism course. More lessons will be released as I update them, along with the additional resources originally offered.

Microbiology, or microbe-biology, is the scientific discipline that pokes and prods microorganisms and tries to figure out what they do, and how they do it. Microbiologists, therefore, are microbe-botherers.

‘Microbe’ is very much a catch-all word. Regardless of the scientific legitimacy of their use, microbe, ‘microbial’ and ‘microorganism’ are all ofte…