You turn on the shower, and pleasantly hot water disperses from its faucet. Looks like we're getting clean. And yes, that is true. But it is no less true that There are many things that are rushing into our bodies besides that seemingly clean water..
Firstly, after each use, the faucet can retain hot water for several hours, which prevents bacteria from drying out.
Microbes and hot water
Bacteria and other microbes find an ideal place in the shower faucet to settle in biofilms, both on the pipes and on the shower heads. In this environment, they can also collect everything that floats in the water, as if they were sea sponges. There are liters and liters of water that often pass.
As explained Rob Dunn in his book Home alone?:
As a result, the biomass contained in shower diffusers amounts to twice or more than that contained in tap water itself. Furthermore, this biomass is made up of a much smaller number of species than tap water, hundreds or even dozens, rather than thousands.
Yes, in water there is more diversity, because it is more difficult to multiply: the easier it is to do the latter, the more difficult diversity is. These species, then, end up forming very stable ecosystems in which each one of them performs a specific function. There are even predatory bacteria:
Right now, in the shower head of every home, these tiny "pikes" are clinging to other bacteria, boring into their sides and releasing chemicals to digest them. Biofilms also support protises that eat the “pikes,” and even nematodes that feed on the protises, as well as fungi that do their own fungal work. This is the food chain that falls on us every time we shower.
That doesn't mean we should avoid showering. Not at all. It is better to shower than not to do so (and not just because of the likely smell we will give off). Furthermore, despite everything said, water saves lives. And it also prevents overpopulation (just as the lack of electricity favors it):
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The news
Everything that falls on you when you take a hot shower
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.