Your Body Is Surrounded by Clouds of Skin and Fart Bacteria
September 22, 2015 7:18 AM   Subscribe

The human microbiome is the subject of intense scrutiny for a variety of reasons -- probiotic yogurt, as a replacement for bathing, even down to the viral level -- but what we really want to know is How incredibly gross am I being by merely existing in the world? It turns out that the answer is Way gross -- like Pigpen, each of us sheds a unique cloud of bacteria that could conceivably be used to track criminals and to more precisely survey disease outbreaks.
posted by Etrigan (48 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Metafilter: farticles
posted by jim in austin at 7:26 AM on September 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


> And as gross as it is to imagine everyone around you shedding microbial bits and pieces into the air...

This is one of those things I've made a conscious choice to not worry about, because that way lies madness.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:27 AM on September 22, 2015 [20 favorites]


...each of us sheds a unique cloud of bacteria that could conceivably be used to track criminals...

You don't say?
posted by Thorzdad at 7:29 AM on September 22, 2015 [14 favorites]


Your body is covered in skin, and that skin is like a vast savannah populated with millions of exotic critters. They feed on the oils seeping from your skin, dead cells, bits of organic matter, and each other. “In a single centimeter of skin, you can find thousands of bacteria,”

Don't think of it as dust. Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization. Maybe the soil of ancient Babylon. It staggers the imagination. He may be carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon, or even Nebuchudnezzar.
posted by three blind mice at 7:39 AM on September 22, 2015 [21 favorites]


Your Body Is Surrounded by Clouds of Skin and Fart Bacteria

Oh, you've met my co-workers!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:42 AM on September 22, 2015 [16 favorites]


It's like I always say, it makes more sense to think of a person as a weird sort of natural process, like a weather system--or, I guess, a little storm system of cells, bacteria, and farts--than like a robot.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:43 AM on September 22, 2015 [11 favorites]


I mean, if I can conceive it being used to track criminals I should probably also conceive it being used to track normal people, sell them things, and otherwise exploit them. Not that there's any way to stop human inquiry once it has a clear target, but wow I wish that pattern was less predictable.
posted by Nomiconic at 7:44 AM on September 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


each of us sheds a unique cloud of bacteria that could conceivably be used to track criminals

Wait, does this bacterial cloud also help us adjudicate guilt? Shouldn't that be "suspects" or something like that?
posted by clockzero at 7:47 AM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is one of those things I've made a conscious choice to not worry about, because that way lies madness.

Human beings are SO GROSS and I always feel better about myself when I am reminded that other people are just as gross as I am. It's such a relief! I went to a moderately athletic thing a couple of weeks ago and there was a woman there who was younger and more attractive than I am and she was one of the sweatiest people I'd ever seen and it was fantastic! Not in a schadenfreude way but in an "it's okay, I'm no worse than other people so she shouldn't feel bad and neither should I!" way.

God people are horribly, horribly disgusting! Yuck! One of the ways I realized that I should marry the man who is now my husband is that I was comfortable acknowledging my weird gross sweaty farty itchy body around him. Knowing I'd be accepted and loved despite having a horrifying disgusting body that has weird smells was HUGE for me.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:47 AM on September 22, 2015 [8 favorites]


FREEMASONS RUN THE COUNTRY
posted by griphus at 7:48 AM on September 22, 2015 [8 favorites]


Your body is a wonderland.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:49 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


your body is a poop gun and every time you it you are reloading it
posted by poffin boffin at 7:50 AM on September 22, 2015 [12 favorites]


I remember watching an episode of That's Incredible! or something when I was a kid, and they showed all this microscopic footage of the bugs that live all over our eyelashes and skin and in our pillows and shit and it freaked me out so bad. So there's no way I'm reading some article about breathing in other people's farts and skin. Nope.
posted by chococat at 7:50 AM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


Microbeads used as exfoliates in soaps and creams lead to new problems in water pollution.
posted by Brian B. at 7:51 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Your body is a wonderland.

Walt Disney's or Jan Svankmajer's?
posted by griphus at 7:51 AM on September 22, 2015 [10 favorites]


there are people who should never read this article lest they hermetically commit suicide..
posted by judson at 7:51 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I really like the idea of applying 'person as natural process or weather system' to great man tellings of history.

"The biome of cells, fart dust, and bacteria known as Beethoven to most created one of the world's greatest musical achievements in its 5th Symphony"
posted by lownote at 7:51 AM on September 22, 2015 [15 favorites]


Also now that we've kicked the dog off the bed and do not allow her on the bed, every morning when she thinks we're not paying attention she runs into the bedroom to get on the bed and quickly eat as much stuff that has fallen off of us in the night as possible.

Filthy little animals. All of us.
posted by griphus at 7:52 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


What you're saying is that the law enforcement apparatus will smell us later?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:53 AM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]


> I remember watching an episode of That's Incredible! or something when I was a kid, and they showed all this microscopic footage of the bugs that live all over our eyelashes and skin and in our pillows and shit and it freaked me out so bad.

I loved that show, but it seemed like every week they just had to take a break from awesome stunts and talented people doing cool shit and harsh your buzz with something like that or some gross operation footage.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:54 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Not to derail, but years ago a Kiwi friend told me that the New Zealand version of that show was named That's Fairly Interesting, which is like the most New Zealand thing ever and I almost died laughing.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:57 AM on September 22, 2015 [27 favorites]


I remember watching an episode of That's Incredible! or something when I was a kid, and they showed all this microscopic footage of the bugs that live all over our eyelashes and skin and in our pillows and shit and it freaked me out so bad.

A few years back the Discovery Channel did a brief series called "Curiosity", where they tapped different Discovery Channel stars to do one-off specials. Mike Rowe was in one called "World's Dirtiest Man" where they looked at exactly this kind of "we are teeming with bacteria all the time" kind of thing.

I can't find a video, but in the finale, they revealed that they made a life-size Mike-Rowe model out of that kind of bio-support goo they put in petri dishes, and they swabbed every nook and cranny of his person to get a sample and they put it all on the corresponding body part on the model and then left it for like a week - and the last scene in this was the big reveal where they showed Mike "here's what grew on your model over the past week after we swabbed you," and it was just COVERED with these different bacterial colonies to the point that it looked like it had been thoroughly painted.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:05 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


every morning when she thinks we're not paying attention she runs into the bedroom to get on the bed and quickly eat as much stuff that has fallen off of us in the night as possible

to clarify this for everyone, griphus and blisterlips are gingerbread people.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:11 AM on September 22, 2015 [14 favorites]


I loved that show, but it seemed like every week they just had to take a break from awesome stunts and talented people doing cool shit and harsh your buzz

Totally. I finally got that "Regurgitator" guy out of my head, they used to have him on That's Incredible! all the time, swallowing lightbulbs. I was flipping channels the other day and there he was on that talent show AHHHH NOOOOO
posted by chococat at 8:16 AM on September 22, 2015


OK, that does it. I'm going Cyberman now.
posted by happyroach at 8:20 AM on September 22, 2015


Pff. The only thing Cybermen are better at is dying.
posted by Etrigan at 8:31 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


> ...people are horribly, horribly disgusting! Yuck!

That's all in your mind, you know. Being thought by your brain. Your squishy, moist brain.
posted by ardgedee at 8:34 AM on September 22, 2015 [10 favorites]


On an intellectual level, I accept this as amazing and awesome, and that human bodies are fascinating, albeit gross.

On a psychoemotional level, I've never wanted to crawl out of my skin so desperately in life and I desperately hate that I RTFA
posted by Ashen at 8:45 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


> ...people are horribly, horribly disgusting! Yuck!

Huh. I'm remembering there was a Northern Exposure episode about this too; Maggie gets weirdly obsessed with dust mites for some reason, and gets all Joan-Crawford about cleanliness - but then at some point Chris Stevens makes one of his usual Chris-Stevens speeches to her and she has a change of heart. I can't find his speech, but I found this quote from Maggie from after she has her epiphany - "Life is everywhere. The earth is throbbing with it, it's like music. The plants, the creatures, the ones we see, the ones we don't see, it's like one, big, pulsating symphony."

There's also some dream sequence where Maggie talks to a seven-foot-tall dust mite.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


clockzero: "Wait, does this bacterial cloud also help us adjudicate guilt? Shouldn't that be "suspects" or something like that?"

Also, we can't properly address any of this without referring to the monumental precedent set by Smelt It V Dealt It. This makes criminal sniffing a very risky job indeed.
posted by idiopath at 8:58 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I can't let my kid read this, as it is I am constantly having to explain to him that he must wash himself because we are not animals that live in the woods and Jesus would he just actually use the goddamn soap in the shower instead of acting like it's acid that will burn off his skin.

I mean, I know we can't help being little bacteria-laden-clouds, but at least we can smell nice occasionally.
posted by emjaybee at 8:59 AM on September 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


The other day I told my girlfriend that our microscopic skin bugs were probably starting a family together and moving over to each other's bodies to make one big happy skin bug family. We both thought that was super cute and wonderfully gross and we kissed each other and talked about how happy our skin bugs will be together, and wished them a long and happy life together.

Because love is freaking great like that.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:59 AM on September 22, 2015 [17 favorites]


The other day I told my girlfriend that our microscopic skin bugs were probably starting a family together and moving over to each other's bodies to make one big happy skin bug family.

Almost a John Donne love poem.
posted by griphus at 9:02 AM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]


Well, I think it's a fucking poem but those were generally filed under "love" back in those days if I remember my 17th century poetry class well (I do not.)
posted by griphus at 9:03 AM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


Apropos unnecessary obsessions about our disgusting bodies, you'll be happy to know that selfie lice is much more parental paranoia than it is health risk.
posted by ardgedee at 9:06 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


"Combined, the non-you cells in your body outnumber the you cells by about 10 to one. And if some sadistic scientist were to grind up and sequence all the DNA in every cell in and on your body, only about 2 percent of the genetic material would be human. The rest is microbes."

Cogito, ergo non sum.

Even better: "Quoting Stanford microbiologist Stanley Falkow, Meadow says, 'The world is covered in a fine patina of feces.'"

So poetically true, and fitting, at the same time.
posted by blucevalo at 10:00 AM on September 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


and oh what a fine patina it is.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:16 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I really like the idea of applying 'person as natural process or weather system' to great man tellings of history.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be where I am now without the support of all the dust, dead skin cells, and poop particles I've gathered onto my body across all my travels. I am my layer of bacteria.
posted by numaner at 10:18 AM on September 22, 2015


You know, for being bags of extremely foul-smelling, poisonous fluid that has somehow become sentient, we're pretty picky about other life forms.
posted by maxsparber at 10:47 AM on September 22, 2015 [10 favorites]


"Quoting Stanford microbiologist Stanley Falkow, Meadow says, 'The world is covered in a fine patina of feces.'"

So poetically true, and fitting, at the same time.


Also, it perfectly describes my week.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:48 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


From the article,

... people pick up microbes from the soil, the air, the food they eat, and the water they wash and drink with. So an individual’s unique microbial signature could put them at the scene of a crime—or exonerate them if the microbes in their cloud match their alibi.

This reminds me of how different regions of the planet also have their own unique microbial signature. In particular, the (microscopic) yeasts and bacteria that float around in the air can lend a unique flavor to locally-produced bread, wine, beer, etc. A classic example is San Francisco sourdough, which really does have a strikingly different taste from other sourdoughs.
posted by math at 10:55 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm rejecting you on the criteria
Of your cloud of skin and fart bacteria.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:33 AM on September 22, 2015 [10 favorites]


I love the smell of my wife's armpits when she sweats. Those are even better - skin bacteria that fart. Most everyone else's pits (except my own) offend me much.
posted by aydeejones at 2:13 PM on September 22, 2015


Pigpen got robbed!
posted by clavdivs at 3:42 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


your body is a poop gun and every time you it you are reloading it

There is no moral way to exist
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:33 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think this is going to be one of the things we have to solve for long term space travel. This stuff is usually presented as a side effect of gross bodies - something produced by them but not necessary to them, but in reality the constant exchange bacteria and viruses and yeasts with our environment is a vital part of the system. We do not have easily defined boundaries, we are semipermeable membranes in constant communication with a complex microbial environment.
posted by Nothing at 6:00 AM on September 23, 2015


It's bacteria's world. We just live in it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:55 AM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


We do not have easily defined boundaries, we are semipermeable membranes in constant communication with a complex microbial environment.

Fall Out Boy's next album.
posted by Etrigan at 7:14 AM on September 23, 2015


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