Microbes, such as bacteria, may be rulers of the cosmic life – and they are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. Indeed, we show how microbes could mimic the Seti programme without human interference.
A typical bacterial colony is a cybernetic entity – a “superbrain” that solves environmental problems. More importantly, all bacterial colonies on Earth are interconnected into a global bacterial supersystem dubbed the bacteriosphere. This “world-wide-web” of genetic information has been regulating the flow of organic elements on Earth over the past three billion years, in a manner that will forever remain beyond human capacities. For example, they cycle important nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen and sulphur.
A new study argues we should search for microbial life rather than human-like aliens.