(2003-04-08) Flying Bugs

Flying microbes: Until recently, nobody believed that Bacteria and Virus-es spent much more time in the air than it takes to sneeze on your neighbor. Scientists assumed that if the material got caught up in the winds, it would quickly be killed by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. But Gene Shinn of the US Geological Survey in St. Petersburg, Fla., who has examined their airborne lifestyle in detail, says the bacteria seem to protect themselves from harmful rays by attaching to dust particles... Last year, Dale Griffin dramatically raised the stakes when he suggested that the 2001 British epidemic of foot and mouth disease may have arrived in Europe on winds from Africa... "We want to discover if it is true that microbes play an active role in forming clouds and making rain."... Clouds are an efficient transportation system for the bacteria to spread themselves across the planet.