Microbiome

What Present-Day Hunter-Gatherers Can Tell Us About the Bacteria in Our Gut

The Hazda is a small group of hunter-gatherers living in the central Rift Valley of Tanzania, one of the few remaining groups of people left in the world who still collect the majority of their diet through foraged foods. Modernity has still managed to touch their lives, of course, but far less than it has…

Health Kristen V. Brown Aug 24

Your Kitchen Sponge Contains More Bacteria Than Any Other Object in Your House

By this point, it shouldn’t surprise you to know that the world is full of bacteria. But the numbers can still be baffling. Take your body: it probably has 37 trillion cells or so, and maybe the same number of bacterial cells. Now think about your kitchen sponge. I don’t care if you want to…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 31

Certain Penis-Dwelling Bacteria Might Increase Your HIV Risk

HIV transmission is a complex process with factors beyond just who you sleep with and how. The virus ultimately needs to find its way to the correct kinds of cells in order to wreak havoc. And some of the risk, at least for those with penises, may come from the kinds of bacteria on the…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 25

Your Eyeballs May Be Covered in Disease-Fighting Bacteria

If the eyes are windows to the soul, they’re open windows, potentially letting in all kinds of unwelcome bugs. To ensure that doesn’t happen, our tears are loaded with microbe-killing compounds and immune cells. In fact, our eyes are so inhospitable that it was long thought they were the only part of our bodies which…

Health Christie Wilcox Jul 11

Astronauts Are Going to Fill Outer Space With All Kinds of Weird Fungus

Humans will make outer space dirty. NASA puts a lot of effort into keeping space clean. The Office of Planetary Protection, for example, exists to protect the Earth from potential life on other planets—but they also have to protect other planets from us. So it’s important to know exactly how we impact the environments we…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 10

Athlete Poop Won’t Improve Your Athletic Performance

The human body isn’t just your cells, but a home for trillions of bacteria. We know that many of those bacteria serve important purposes, and imbalances or a lack of diversity could lead to illness. But research into this field is pretty new. At least, new enough that you shouldn’t just transplant someone else’s gut…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jun 30

How Pickles Got Caught Up in the Latest Health Fad

For 15 years, pickle makers from across the East Coast have gathered to celebrate brined vegetables at New York City’s Lower East Side Pickle Day. Last year, thirty thousand people squeezed in lines beside white tents that stretched over a quarter mile. A word appeared on some of the sauerkraut tents: “probiotic.” Several of the…

Health Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 23

Your Crappy American Diet Might Leave Your Gut Bacteria Stunted

Adopting a healthy lifestyle might not seem that hard on the outset. You ate a lot of cheeseburgers and drank a lot of soda, and now you’re going to stop doing that. But a new study in mice suggests that it takes a while for the gut’s bacterial zoo, or microbiome, to adapt to dietary…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum Dec 29

Are You Your Microbiome? Ed Yong Explains It All

Writer Ed Yong has been chronicling the science of microbial life for years at such outlets as The New York Times, the Atlantic (where he is now a staff writer), and his blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science (currently hosted by National Geographic). Now he has published his first book, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within…

Books & Comics Jennifer Ouellette Aug 10

Your Belly Button Lint Makes a Beautiful Portrait as Unique as Your Fingerprint

Your belly button is teeming with microbial life—a mix of many different species unique to you. Brooklyn-based artist Joana Ricou creates “portraits” based on individual microbiomes. The result is some surprisingly lovely imagery. Science has always informed Ricou’s art. Originally from Portugal, she studied art and biology at Carnegie Mellon University, spending equal time in…

Tech News Jennifer Ouellette Feb 26

Deepak Chopra Thinks Stomach Bacteria Listens to Your Thoughts

Holistic health advocate Deepak Chopra is at it again, this time spouting his patented food nonsense at the “Fat Summit” online conference. While speaking to celebrity doctor and alternative medicine enthusiast Mark Hyman, Chopra explained that the vast collection of microbes in our gut are actually capable of listening to our thoughts. As science and…

Tech News George Dvorsky Jan 27

There Are Some Seriously Psychedelic Bacteria Living on Your Teeth

Like every other surface of your body, your mouth is teeming with a panoply of bacteria. It’s a thought most of us try to keep buried in the backs of our minds, but a new study shows that the tiny communities flourishing between your molars can be quite pretty. In a kaleidoscopic nightmare-fuel sort of…

Tech News Maddie Stone Jan 26

Your Colon May Be Home to an Entirely New Form of Life

A new genetic analysis of human gut bacteria is turning up some really weird critters—so weird, in fact, that some biologists are speculating we’ve found an entirely new domain of life. We should take that possibility with a healthy dose of skepticism. But here’s why it’s even being discussed. In the past ten years, new…

Health Maddie Stone Nov 12

Sounds Gross, But Intestinal Worms Can Actually Be Good For You

Intestinal worms have an incredibly bad reputation. The thought of them sneaking around inside our bodies and eating us from the inside is pretty unpleasant. But for decades, results coming out of lab after lab have shown that some kinds of helminths can be extremely beneficial to their host, and aren’t parasites at all. Just…

Health William Parker—The Conversation Oct 30

We’re all Surrounded by a Personal Cloud of Bacteria

Bad news, hypochondriacs: You’re walking in a massive cloud of bacteria. In fact, it’s kinda an extension of your body, and no amount of showering will rid you of it. Even better: It grew out of your mouth, poop and skin. The personal “microbial cloud,” described today in the journal Peer J, is just the…

Health Maddie Stone Sep 22

Your Burger Is Full of Living Things, Even If It’s Vegetarian

We all have our personal feelings about how a burger should be cooked. But if there’s one thing that’s universally agreed upon, it’s that a burger on bun with ketchup and toppings should be very much dead. In reality, that’s not the case at all. Your cow patty is a goddamn ecosystem. And yes, vegans,…

Tech News Maddie Stone Jul 27

XKCD Tips Its Hat to the Microbiome (and so Should You)

When was the last time you thanked the bugs in your belly? Even if the concept of a “healthy” microbiome is flawed, the trillions of microorganisms living in your gut (and mouth, and vagina, and nose, etc.) play a vital role in many of your body’s functions. They’re so essential, many refer to the microbiome…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jun 26

A Remote Amazonian Tribe Harbors Unprecedented Microbial Diversity

The trillions of bacteria that live on us and in us—otherwise known as our microbiomes—are vital to our health in ways we’re just beginning to understand. Now scientists have discovered the most diverse collection of bodily bacteria ever, in a remote Amazonian tribe of southern Venezuela. The study, which appeared yesterday in the journal Science…

Health Maddie Stone Apr 18

Genetically-Engineered Bacteria Can Keep Mice From Getting Fat

Scientists now know that gut microbes almost certainly play a role in us getting fat, and poop transplants are sometimes touted as a potential route to weight loss. But if that’s a little too icky for you, Vanderbilt scientists have been experimenting with more refined microbiome tinkering in mice using genetically modified E. coli. Previous…

Health Sarah Zhang Apr 9

9 Types Of Bacteria You Didn’t Know You’re Sharing Your House With

We all know that the homes we believe belong to us are actually varied landscapes in which billions of creatures live, but we usually try not to think about our microbial roommates. Find out why your bathroom is the ultimate bacteria battleground, and why cleaning it can sometimes make it worse. 9) Fecal Bacteria Is…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Apr 8

What Present-Day Hunter-Gatherers Can Tell Us About the Bacteria in Our Gut

Your Kitchen Sponge Contains More Bacteria Than Any Other Object in Your House

Certain Penis-Dwelling Bacteria Might Increase Your HIV Risk

Your Eyeballs May Be Covered in Disease-Fighting Bacteria

Astronauts Are Going to Fill Outer Space With All Kinds of Weird Fungus

Athlete Poop Won’t Improve Your Athletic Performance

How Pickles Got Caught Up in the Latest Health Fad

Your Crappy American Diet Might Leave Your Gut Bacteria Stunted

Are You Your Microbiome? Ed Yong Explains It All

Your Belly Button Lint Makes a Beautiful Portrait as Unique as Your Fingerprint

Deepak Chopra Thinks Stomach Bacteria Listens to Your Thoughts

There Are Some Seriously Psychedelic Bacteria Living on Your Teeth

Your Colon May Be Home to an Entirely New Form of Life

Sounds Gross, But Intestinal Worms Can Actually Be Good For You

We’re all Surrounded by a Personal Cloud of Bacteria

Your Burger Is Full of Living Things, Even If It’s Vegetarian

XKCD Tips Its Hat to the Microbiome (and so Should You)

A Remote Amazonian Tribe Harbors Unprecedented Microbial Diversity

Genetically-Engineered Bacteria Can Keep Mice From Getting Fat

9 Types Of Bacteria You Didn’t Know You’re Sharing Your House With

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