Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

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This is Scientific American's 60-second science.'m Christopher in Taliatta. Got a minute?

In 2011, a 28 state outbreak of Listeria from cantalopes infected 147 people, and 33 of them died.

After that, many Americans evidently thought twice about bringing one of the melons home.

Canaloupe consumption dropped by half after the

infections. But paying closer attention to the ecology of our fields, like tracking when they've been

rained on, could be a step toward beating bacteria and preventing that sort of food poisoning.

So says a study in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Researchers monitored spinach

fields in New York State, both before and after irrigation in rain, and they found that levels

of Listeria bacteria in the soil spiked in the 24 hours after water hit the field, up to 25

times the levels that were present a week after the rain.

The scientists cite two factors.

Listeria is exceedingly common in the environment, from the soils of national parks to, yes, irrigation water.

So Listeria could be getting dumped directly on fields during irrigation.

But rain also creates more favorable conditions for a bacterial bloom, and that holds for any

type of bacteria present in the soil, the researchers say, whether salmonella, E. coli, or the

Listeria studied here.

The lesson for farmers, they say, hold off on harvesting after rains or watering.

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