This is but we're humans do it too and our stuff is alive.

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 these guys.

Adam Altrichter, a microbial ecologist at the University of Oregon.

We've never been sterile organisms. We are definitely masses of microbes both in and on us.

If you're picturing the peanuts character Pigpen, you may not be far off because biologists

estimate we shed a million particles an hour

including of course a lot of bacteria.

Al Trichter and his colleagues wanted to measure that cloud of particles, the pig pen effect, if you will.

So they asked 11 volunteers not to shower, dressed them in shorts and tank tops, and put them in a

sterile chamber for hours at a time, while collecting microbial samples on surfaces and in the air.

What they found in those samples was a menagerie of bacteria from the volunteer's skin,

guts, genital tracks, lungs, noses, and mouths.

And for 8 of the 11 study subjects,

the microbial cloud was unique enough

to identify the individual who'd left it,

suggesting that this bacterial fingerprint

could someday be used in forensics.

The study is in the journal Pier J.

Given that we spend 90% of our lives indoors,

our microbial clouds also colonize the places we live and work, and yes, the people around us.

It's just kind of interesting to think about how the people that we interact with at work or in classrooms or other environments how we could be

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