3 ms·
Your 'Microbial Cloud' Is Like a Floating, Invisible Fingerprint
- evan_ 11y agoShould be noted that this is a product of the University of Oregon, not "Oregon University"
- mirimir 11y agoThis reminds me of other interesting observations about bacteria. First, our human DNA sequence is shorter than the aggregate DNA sequence of bacteria in our guts etc. Second, bacteria are ubiquitous, found as deep as a few km. Third, global bacterial biomass is arguably comparable to total animal and plant biomass. Fourth, only about 1% of the bacteria in random samples from the environment have ever been cultured and cataloged, so about 99% are known only through DNA sequence analysis.
- prawn 11y agoWill we eventually be identified and tracked in physical spaces by our microbial cloud signature?
- anon4 11y ago> Most of the 11 subjects had unique microbial clouds So even in their tiny sample size they wouldn't be able to identify individuals. I suspect if you increase the size, you'd find people from same families have similar microbial biomes and they are not at all unique.