• Question: which microbe can kill u and why

    Asked by anon-29505 to Duncan, Grant, Julie, Nik, Rachel on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Campbell

      Grant Campbell answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Lots of microbes can kill you, broadly in two ways:
      i) they can infect you and take over your body, which eventually kills you (they don’t mind, they can eat you as easily when you’re dead as when you’re alive!);
      ii) they can produce poisons (in food, which you then eat, or in your body) and the poison kills you.

      Luckily neither of these happens so much these days, at least not in the UK, but in the past these were the causes of death of lots of people!

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