The interconnectedness of all things is icky.
They constructed an air-monitoring device so that it could be attached to a single person all day. The device took in puffs of air and was equipped with a tiny filter that could trap microscopic bacteria and aerosol particles as small as 25 micrometers across. Every few days, the device was emptied out, allowing their lab to analyze the chemicals and living things collected in a sample.
Over the course of two years, the team recruited 15 volunteers to wear the device, including Snyder himself. Some wore it for a week, others for a month, and in Snyder’s case, for the entire two years.
And along with the countless chemicals they found in these samples, the team documented and sequenced the genetics of more than 40,000 different bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals. All of these airborne passengers found in our personal space make up our “exposome,” a term coined by Snyder and his team.
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-peer-inside-the-disgusting-cloud-of-living-t-1829201369
Nice. Personally, I look forward to the first of these kinds of articles which begins along the lines of: "There are currently more individual organisms living up your nose than the total number all of the human beings currently on planet Earth", or similar.
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When my kids were teenies, I made sure they played in the grass and dirt and generally enjoyed themselves outdoors. I'd get hectored by various and sundry, asking, rhetorically of course, if I wanted my children to get sick.
ReplyDeleteNo, dear if stupid people - this is to ensure their little immune systems are exposed to every sort of microbiological citizen of this immediate area.
All three grew up reasonably healthy and strong. It's my considered opinion too much cleanliness isn't good. Oh, to be sure, we ought to wash our hands and sanitise our food prep surfaces - far too little of that sort of meaningful and effective sanitation, but there's far too much neurotic worrying about soaps and smells and suchlike.
That's part of the reason AIDS/HIV was so hard to spot: people weren't dying of one specific thing, they were literally dying of every sort of infection.