by Adewale Olowode

Created on: December 09, 2008

Microorganism, be it alga, protozoan, fungus, bacterium or virus represents a very significant member of the world's biomes. Biomes group ecosystem(consisting of both living and non-living factors) according to similarity in climates and inhabitation by particular plants and animals. A whole lot of lifeforms are to be found in any ecosystem. But these lifeforms have to learn to co-exist with non-living factors. A story was told of a layman who plans to invest his energy in looking for ways to exterminate all of the mosquitoes on earth. When a scientist in the neighborhood told him of the importance of mosquitoes in the pollination of some specific flowers, he bowed out! The world of microorganisms presents to man a rare opportunity to learn more about those lifeforms the naked eyes could not see using a light or an electron microscope.

First, microorganisms may be used in bringing to fruition some vital chemical reactions, including baking, pickling, winemaking, and brewing. The baking process uses the fungus known as yeast to make bread dough to rise, in an oven whose temperature is in the neighborhood of 300 degrees Centigrade. Pickling is a method of preserving food by the use of anaerobic fermentation in brine(a saturated solution of sodium chloride). Winemaking is also called vinification. It is a process that makes use of fermentation to produce wines from grapes. Brewing offers man with the recipes for lager, mead, cider, and ale. In bewing, these malt beverages are made from malt and hops by grinding and boiling them before fermentation with yeasts.

Second, miroorganisms are now used to produce biogas from cow dungs and other similar wastes from poultry and piggery. The main chemical content of the biogas is methane, the common fuel for home cooking and heating. Biogas reactors are now becoming more and more common as the benefit of biogas spreads arounds the world. Bacteria are the most important microorgnisms in the production process.

Third, man keeps using the same water from different ecosystem again and again, because microorganisms are forever available to help convert the very harmful wastewaters from various sources to harmless or disease-free potable water for everyone. With science and now, specially-cultured microbes are used to biologically effect a change in the wastewater.

Ethanol is becoming a very important fuel now in the US courtesy of research and most importantly yeast. Some cars now run on biodiesel fuel. A very good example is the

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