The Loss of a Good Word

by Elio

Pho­tomi­cro­graph of nanobac­te­ria from ice cores. Cour­tesy of V. I. Miteva and J. E. Brench­ley

A re­cent re­port goes a long way to­wards dis­pelling the no­tion that "nanobac­te­ria" found in hu­man blood are liv­ing en­ti­ties. They seem to be in­or­ganic pre­cip­i­tates, in­stead. Fine with me. What is less fine is that those mak­ing the orig­i­nal claim have man­gled a per­fectly good term and per­haps ren­dered it use­less. Many, if not most, bac­te­ria in the en­vi­ron­ment are very small, some pass­ing through fil­ters that re­tain "reg­u­lar" bac­te­ria. See our pre­vi­ous post en­ti­tled Old, small, cold… or a most in­formative re­view. These tiny or­gan­isms de­serve to be called nanobac­te­ria. This may be a lost cause. When en­ter­ing "nanobac­te­ria" in Google, the first 100 hits (out of 186,000) are about the ap­par­ently spu­ri­ous en­ti­ties, none about real bac­te­ria. Abuse of words hap­pens.