Daily Devotion:

Title: Bacteria Do It

Date: February 24, 2013

Dr. Bonnie Bassler, winner of a 2002 MacArthur Foundation genius award*, says there are six hundred bacterial species on your teeth this morning living in exactly the same order as yesterday — this guy next to that guy, and so on. Here is the tasteless, scary part for the truly paranoid — these microorganisms communicate with each other. That's right. Bacteria talk, listen, and organize.

For instance, if millions of bioluminescent bacteria are present in a squid, they may all at once, together, decide to glow. If nasty bacteria like salmonella want to attack their host, they might wait for sufficient numbers before releasing their toxins; otherwise, if they attack one at a time, our immune systems might win.

Not only do they talk among themselves, they also talk interspecies — one bacterial strain to another — hence, the repetitive structure of these beasties on your teeth every morning. The upside of this knowledge is that if we can learn to disrupt their communication, we may increase our chances for improved health. On a microscopic level, God has created creepy creatures, communicating interspecies, and apparently using a single and universal bacterial language.

This makes me wonder — is there a single human language, maybe one without words, that can communicate across our human divides and broken relationships and that also reaches up to God?

Let's Pray: Dear God, bacteria talk, and I don't know if I should be creeped-out or awestruck, or both. Your human children worldwide need help organizing and communicating across the gaps among us. Show us the way. Amen.

Here’s a Thought: Human love in action is our universal language.

Source: * http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/bassler_bio.html