Could our household microbes help or harm us?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As scientists keep finding ever more fascinating facts about the invisible housemates that share our homes, we dust off our episode on what might be lurking in quiet household corners or under our beds. Marnie Chesterton reminds us how dust can contain all sorts of secrets about our habits and everyday lives, and Anand Jagatia bravely ventures into parts of our homes that are usually overlooked. He heads out on a microbial safari with expert tour guide Dr Jamie Lorimer from the University of Oxford to find out what kind of creatures are living in our kitchens, bathrooms and gardens - from bacteria normally found in undersea vents popping up in a kettle, to microbes quietly producing tiny nuggets of gold. For so long this hidden world has been one that we’ve routinely exterminated - but should we be exploring it too? Presenters: Marnie Chesterton and Anand Jagatia. Produced by Jen Whyntie for BBC World Service.
(Photo: A woman using a damp sponge to clean dust collected on a window sill. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.8 | So if you like what you hear, lifted off the system cover on the toilet. |
| 0:45.0 | So we've got some mold on top of the system mechanism here. There's some quite |
| 0:50.3 | striking colours around the top here but where you could really get excited as a |
| 0:54.5 | microbiologist is probably underneath the louis seat or even if you really |
| 0:59.7 | wanted to get stuck in underneath the toilet rim where the where the nasties would really |
| 1:06.7 | lurk. The rim of your toilet bowl may not sound like a particularly interesting place. In fact it probably sounds like a |
| 1:14.4 | place you'd rather not think about at all. But as we're about to find out, |
| 1:18.9 | venturing into unexplored territory like this can tell you all kinds of fascinating things. |
| 1:31.5 | This is Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. I'm Anan Jagatier and this week we're taking you on a domestic safari into all of the nooks and crannies of your home because they are teeming with microbial life. |
| 1:49.1 | This is a topic we first tackled on crowd science back in December 2017 when listener Mosha asked us what |
| 1:55.9 | was in his household dust. And since then there's been an explosion of interest and research into the bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other |
| 2:05.8 | miniscule life forms that share our world. |
| 2:09.3 | And it's not just scientists who are hunting them down. Stay tuned to hear how you can join in the search for microbial life. |
| 2:17.0 | We now think these tiny invisible creatures are everywhere, living on our skin, thriving in our guts, and in every |
| 2:26.4 | crevice of our homes. Some of these microorganisms can make us sick or worse, but it turns out that some of them can be extremely useful to us, |
... |
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