Hi, we're here from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today, you learn about nose and throat bacteria that might make you less likely to get the flu.

The red juice in your steak dinner, which is actually not

blood, and how encryption works, as well as why quantum computing could break it.

Let's satisfy some curiosity.

According to new research, certain nose and throat bacteria make you less likely to get

the flu.

And this could be big news for doctors trying to prevent the flu and secondary infections

like pneumonia.

This is cool because it's not just a random

new study about bacteria, the researchers found a kind of thing that hasn't really

been seen before. Totally. As reported by Futurity, researchers from the University of Michigan looked at samples of nose and throat bacteria from people who had confirmed influenza,

and they used DNA sequencing to figure out exactly which bacteria were present.

The researchers found five clusters

and then checked to see if participants with a given cluster

were more likely to get influenza.

They factored in other risk factors,

like age, tobacco use, flu vaccination, stuff like that.

What was surprising was that who had which cluster made a difference in whether they got

influenza.

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