What percentage of the cells in your body are not human?

CapainNemo

90% the human body consists of roughly 100 trillion cells, of which only 10 trillion are human. The rest are mostly bacteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(numbers)#1012 May 27 09, 10:23 AM

queproblema

Yes, that's right....I think. The entire quote is: "BioMed — Cells in the human body: the human body consists of roughly 10^14 cells, of which only 10^13 are human. The remainder of the cells are bacteria, which mostly reside in the gastrointestinal tract, although the skin is also covered in bacteria." Yet Paul Hawken, in his recent commencement speech at the University of Portland, increased that figure by a power of ten, not that it matters much, being a mere estimate: "In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells." http://www.paulhawken.com/multimedia/UofP_Commencement_05.03.09.pdf It's an interesting speech, certainly briefer and zippier than many. May 27 09, 6:30 PM