My March issue of Wired Magazine arrived! As frequent readers of the Biotech Mashup will learn, I just love Wired because it presents interesting articles about all types of science and technology. This is the same theme for the Biotech Mashup blog. There was one cool (scary) article talking about the so-called microbiome associated with our bodies. Some fast facts from Wired (and my own research):

-The microbiome weights about as much as your brain (the average adult human brain weighs about 3 pounds).

-The number of microbes in the microbiome outnumbers our own cells by about 10:1.

-About 40,000 organisms live under each finger nail, and there are about 2 million microbes per square centimeter on your hands.

-Some species of Propionibacteria are found in food like cheeses and other dairy products. They are also found in acne! About 100,000 of these bugs can hide out in a single hair follicle, and they form the white goo in a zit (after they’ve been attacked by white blood cells).

Crazy stuff! We are all essentially walking ecosystems. I would think there is evolution occurring within each of these mini ecosystems (microbiomes), as well. The foods we choose to eat, the body chemistries we have, the cosmetics we use, and the medicines we take, will all influence the bugs we live with and result in survival of the fittest. Eventually, when sequencing technology becomes more affordable, what might we learn by studying the genomes and SNPs of the bugs we live with? Perhaps it may be possible to identify lifestyles or habits by the SNPs of the bugs we carry, which may undergo convergent evolution amongst people with similar styles.