amnhnyc:Did you know? Your belly button is home to much, much more than just the occasional piece
amnhnyc: Did you know? Your belly button is home to much, much more than just the occasional piece of lint. In 2012, researchers observed spectacular microbial diversity in belly buttons—in 60 different belly buttons surveyed, they found a total of nearly 2,400 phylotypes (a phylotype is shorthand in microbiome studies for “species”) of bacteria. The vast majority of these phylotypes (2,188) were found in fewer than 10 percent of the belly buttons studied. Even though there were 200 or so phylotypes found in more than 10 percent of the belly buttons, none of these were found in all belly buttons, and only eight phylotypes are found in more than 70 percent of the belly buttons. The authors of the work suggest that the belly button biodiversity is on par with the animal diversity in a jungle! Learn more about this research. -- source link
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