Replies to post #137869 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

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sideeki -- and then there's the (not inconsistent) research indicating that we're just a fancy agent of rust . . .

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Your belly button is packed full of disgusting stuff, scientists say


Jewelry doesn't mean it's clean.
(Getty Images)

The first round of data from the Belly Button Biodiversity [ http://www.wildlifeofyourbody.org/ ] project is in, revealing what some already suspected: Belly buttons are gross.

Students and researchers working on the project found hundreds of bacterial strains they didn’t even know existed, meaning your stomach could be a breeding ground for scientific discoveries.

Overall, the attention-grabbing study from North Carolina State University [ http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2011/04/14/scientists-teach-people-about-belly-button-bacteria-msnbc/ ] has pinpointed 1,400 bacterial strains from the 95 navel swabs collected so far. And 662 of those strains were unclassified microbes.

The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-find-a-rich-array-of-unknown-bacteria-in-human-navels/2011/07/01/gHQAJ476xH_story.html ] reports:

The project was conceived as a lighthearted exercise in science communication, but it is making a serious contribution to the understanding of microbial diversity. Since April, samples of bacteria taken when volunteers swabbed their navels have had their “DNA barcodes” read by sequencing the gene for 16S ribosomal RNA, which is widely used in studies of bacterial evolutionary relationships.

Want to see what’s living in your belly button? Check out this gallery from the BBB project [ http://www.wildlifeofyourbody.org/?page_id=514 ].

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