Can you kill a bacteria by squashing it? If a bacteria falls, does it make a sound?

You can squish bacteria, but it’s not easy. Bacteria are tiny (about 2 micrometers long, or 2×10−6 meters), which means if you stepped on one even on a smooth floor, the microgrooves in the floor would be plenty big to protect them. If scientists aren’t careful, they do squish them with microscope slide glass or by stirring too long & vigorously with a glass rod in a petri dish. Sturdy little guys, though: they populate the bottom of the Marianas Trench at pressures that would crush us instantly: bit.ly/bacteria-marianas. I don’t know if they make a sound when they fall, but bacteria apparently do make noises: bit.ly/bacteria-sounds.

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.