You think lichens are representative off our conceptions about an ‘organism’ being off? My friends, let me introduce you to the weird world of bacteria, where one cell’s waste becomes the triggering signal for a billion cells with completely different DNA to begin acting in concert. Your brain patterns? Yup, partially affected by short chain fatty acids released by bacteria in the gut. That terrible acne you suffered from in high school? Oh boy, more bacteria, and not just on your skin but in your gut and and your skin and in your skin!

Let’s not even get started on bacterial sex habits either. It would be equivalent to a human randomly mating with a squirrel sometime, and the squirrel suddenly starts washing its hands.