Study: People Emit a "Germ Cloud" of Bacteria As Unique As a Fingerprint 78
An anonymous reader writes: According to a new study, we are all surrounded by a personal "germ cloud" as unique as a fingerprint. Lead author of the study Dr James Meadow says: "We expected that we would be able to detect the human microbiome in the air around a person, but we were surprised to find that we could identify most of the occupants just by sampling their microbial cloud. Our results confirm that an occupied space is microbially distinct from an unoccupied one, and demonstrate for the first time that individuals release their own personalized microbial cloud." The findings were published today in the journal PeerJ.
Stop the presses! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stop the presses and the TV scripts (Score:3)
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I'm pretty sure any dog could have told you that.
Germs don't necessarily stink.
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They do after I've had pizza and beer. It's a scientific fact.
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I'm pretty sure any dog could have told you that.
Germs don't necessarily stink.
At least to the level detectable by humans.
OTOH, dogs have been shown to be able to successfully indicate which a set of samples comes from a human that has cancer. Including, falsely first thought, but then proven correct, indicating a sample from a person from the control group.
I'd suspect them quite capable of differentiating the blends of excreta from different sets of bacteria.
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I've wondered about that. I'm curious if the dogs are detecting an odor based on decay or something else?
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If you're trying to say that living bacteria don't cause chemical odours (not sure about those non chemical odours though?), I know a good biology textbook.
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I asked my dog and all he had to say about it was "woof". Which I interpreted as "I'm hungry" according to past conversations.
Not very conclusive.
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--Your dog wants steak. ;-)
Pig-Pen (Score:5, Funny)
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Only when I dance, I swear.
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And we can use it as a form of ID.
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And we can use it as a form of ID.
Let me know how that works for you, with the TSA.
Pull my finger (Score:2)
Auras really exist (Score:1)
So, after all this time science discovers that auras actually exist.
Follow up will be interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this "fingerprint" bacterial cloud change with time? after antibiotic use? what about members of a family or people that recently began living together? It does not feel like this will have a practical use in the near future, but opens some interesting lines of study.
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Probably. But im thinking of a future with discreet germ cloud sensors used to track peoples movements.
My movements are more directly measured by the smell, I assure you! ;)
Re:Follow up will be interesting. (Score:4, Funny)
Does this "fingerprint" bacterial cloud change with time?
This method of identification can be defeated by eating a taco.
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Yes I believe there has been documentation about the microbiome changing when you live with someone, but not totally. IIRC you end up with traces of each-others microbiome in each..
Follow up research should be pretty neat.
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Yes. This TED Talk is very illuminating: https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_... [ted.com]
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I'd be interested too to see the impact of severe illness; some of the diarrheal illnesses can clear the gut of bacteria, I suspect some high-fever sicknesses could materially influence this cloud as well.
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Taking antibiotics can kill off your gut bacteria too
I assume that's the reason why some antibiotic side effects include "the green apple splatters"
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Here's a two minute clip discussing it:
http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
Ha, so it turns out (Score:5, Funny)
6 year olds are right after all, there IS such a thing as cooties.
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I would think that there are plenty of ways a clerk at a bank could set off an alarm that would notify the police and take air samples around a thief. One could put a piece of cardboard under the hundred dollar bills. If under duress one could just remove the cardboard with the bills. Or maybe the bank would take air samples from everyone just in case of a problem. There are probably ways of defeating this. If one were to wear a air and water tight garment and take a shower in it soon before attempting
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So all you need to do to frame someone, is sneeze on them?
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"Funding
This work was funded by a grant to the Biology and the Built Environment Center from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Microbiology for the Built Environment Program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."
Why only "most"? Study seems to be spiked. (Score:2)
So I am a walking cootie factory? (Score:1)
Pig-Pen (Score:2)
The real iCloud (Score:4, Funny)
Something tells me that this is the real iCloud. Now we need an app to connect to it!
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No, some genius will trademark the concept as "myCloud" or something like that and we'll all be paying royalties.
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I don't think I want an app to connect to someone else's "personal cloud".
Re: The real iCloud (Score:1)
I don't need an app. Nature has granted me an extendable poker.
Two words... (Score:2)
PROVE IT
Unique? (Score:2)
By "as unique as fingerprints", I assume then mean "not very unique" [wikipedia.org].
I love how... (Score:3)
I wonder (Score:1)
Would a husband and wife with as active sex life (for proximity) have roughly identical "germ clouds".
I came across some information on gut bacteria showing that couples quite often share the same gut bacteria (to a degree) after being together for a while.
Of course that depends on factors like how often they kiss etc.
Great... (Score:2)
Usain Bolt is nothing more than a bacteria Ferarri.