4.2 • 639 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2015
⏱️ 3 minutes
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0:00.0 | Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in. |
0:05.8 | Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years. |
0:11.0 | Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program. |
0:19.6 | To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co. |
0:22.7 | .jp.j. That's y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.jp. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt. |
0:33.6 | This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Talata. Got a minute? |
0:39.3 | You might blame your pets for shedding all over the house, but we humans do it too, and our stuff is alive. |
0:46.5 | We're constantly emitting microbes around us, and this is coming from shedding of our skin, from exhaling, you know, our hair, and we're just full of |
0:56.7 | these guys. |
0:57.7 | Adam Altrichter, a microbial ecologist at the University of Oregon. |
1:01.4 | We've never been sterile organisms. We are definitely masses of microbes, both in and on us. |
1:09.3 | If you're picturing the Peanets character Pigpen, you may not be far off, |
1:13.5 | because biologists estimate we shed a million particles an hour, |
1:17.5 | including, of course, a lot of bacteria. |
1:20.6 | Altrickter and his colleagues wanted to measure that cloud of particles, |
1:23.9 | the Pigpen effect, if you will. |
1:25.8 | So they asked 11 volunteers not to shower, dressed them in shorts and tank tops, |
1:30.0 | and put them in a sterile chamber for hours at a time, while collecting microbial samples on surfaces and in the air. |
1:37.0 | What they found in those samples was a menagerie of bacteria, from the volunteers' skin, guts, genital tracks, lungs, noses, and mouths. |
1:45.3 | And for eight of the 11 study subjects, the microbial cloud was unique enough to identify |
1:49.9 | the individual who'd left it, suggesting that this bacterial fingerprint could someday be |
1:55.2 | used in forensics. The study is in the journal Pier J. Given that we spend 90% of our lives indoors, our microbial |
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