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Doesn't it depend on what "99%" means? If a cleaning agent will kill 100% of 99% species of bacteria then there'll be nothing left except the bacteria that's al
by onion2k 5y ago
Doesn't it depend on what "99%" means? If a cleaning agent will kill 100% of 99% species of bacteria then there'll be nothing left except the bacteria that's already resistant to the agent and nothing will evolve new resistance. On the other hand, if it kills 99% of 100% of species of bacteria then you're right, the resistant ones will remain and could evolve in to a fully resistant species.
- pjerem 5y agoIt doesn’t matter because bacteria species are always fighting each other. So even if in your 99%, you kill 100% of a specific species, the 1% species left, whatever they are, have now plenty of free environment to proliferate. Yes it can be a good outcome if the resistant ones are not pathogens but the thing is that you don’t know and probabilities are that the pathogens / total won’t change.
- manwe150 5y agoI think you mean, “it does matter”, since you describe different outcomes. Even in the case where those were pathogens, they may subsequently lose the competitive pressure to be good at fighting. Then when they re-encounter a robust environment, they may be totally annihilated. In certain types of bio research, we now have to protect the species from humans, rather than the reverse, since they have been without that competitive pressure for so long and become optimized instead for growth and production.