LIFE ON US - Part 1: “Private Wildlife” (from CuriosityStream.com)

A recent scientific study, looking for bacterium in people’s belly-buttons, tested 60 subjects, and found over 2,300 different types of bacteria.  The amazing thing was that no one, single bacteria was found in all 60 individuals, but everyone had some form of bacteria or another living in their belly-buttons; some had hundreds of different types, while others had as little as six types.  Oddly, the people who had the LEAST amount of bacteria in their belly-button, had the poorest health.

Much like the needed biodiversity of our earth, we need a large variety of bacterium to guard our human ecosystems; on average, there are more than one billion bacteria on every square centimeter of an average human being.  We provide a food supply for them, as we loose 30-40 thousand dead skin cells every hour.  Bacteria fight each other and fight things that harm us; Bacillus Subtilis “patrol our skin, looking for fungi to attack” – if it wasn’t for them, we would end up covered in mold!  Staphylococcs Epidermidis, a common skin bacteria, however, colonizes so quickly sometimes, it takes over an entire area, as we all know.  The key is communication… yes, communication between bacteria; they have learned to “connect” and work together to allow the most beneficial or least competitive bacteria to live together in one area, building alliances “to outsmart invaders.”  Additionally, bacteria can change their genomes easily; this can be both good and bad.  A former rival bacteria can become cooperative and benefit its host, and a simple skin bacteria can become deadly in an instant.  One bacteria, Streptococcus (which normally only causes a sore throat), can turn into a flesh-eating disease which can kill within twelve hours!

One brain parasite, Toxo Plamsa, also called the “Zombie Bug” needs to reproduce inside of a cat’s gut, specifically; so it gets inside of mice, from the field, and causes the mouse to lose it’s fear of cats.  In fact, it causes it to be attracted to cats, enticing cats to eat the mouse, so it can reproduce.  This is one of the most common human brain parasites.  It affects as many as 55% of the population in countries where eating rare meat is common.

A little mite, called Demodex Folliculorum, generally lives in our eyelash pores; they come out at night and crawl on our face, and have sex and eat, and we never even know it.  They are transparent, and eat the oils and microbes in our pours; and probably have a little ecosystem of their own in their gut.  Testing has been done to compare mites between individuals; one mite was filmed (under the microscope) giving birth!  Unfortunately for them, a mite has no anus, and dies when its gut becomes impacted.

Common head lice, Pediculus Humanus Capitis, are louse that only survive by hanging onto its host by the hair; they have been around for 130 million years as far as we can tell. A blood-sucking parasite, there are 5,000 species of louse in total; they cannot walk, crawl or fly, only jumping from one host to another.  It is thought that these particular parasites are one reason that humans evolved with less hair on our bodies, reducing the risk from disease from these parasites.  Contrary to popular belief, public lice are NOT the same as head lice, as their claws are much different for holding onto courser hair; scientists suspect that our ancestors actually picked up this louse from the ancestors of gorillas long ago, in some type of close encounter between the two.  Interesting, huh?

Reference:

CuriosityStream. (2014). Information summarized from: https://app.curiositystream.com/series/237; https://app.curiositystream.com/video/1415;  https://app.curiositystream.com/video/1416