Fascinating, thanks for the reply. I always love hearing the protocols for requirements like this, makes a lot of sense tho, re: the sterilization techniques (i

Fascinating, thanks for the reply. I always love hearing the protocols for requirements like this, makes a lot of sense tho, re: the sterilization techniques (irradiation for food, autoclave for liquids, etc.). I'm surprised the germ-free animal models had such surprisingly normal lifespans. Thanks for the link too. Part of me is still skeptical of the degree to which the germfree animal models are in fact germ free at the end of their lives (I'll have to do some more digging through the literature). Seems like these germfree animal models should yield some great insights into the microbiome tho. Just curious, what sort of projects are you working on? It's a fascinating field. Slash, what are your opinions of all these microbiome mapping tests (e.g. Viome, etc.). I mean, our microbiomes seem to change fairly frequently such that a singular snapshot at these relatively infrequent intervals seems inadequate for most uses.