Your Body Is A Wonderland . . . For Microorganisms (SXSW SciArt Project Update!)
Do you guys remember a few weeks ago during SXSW when I went out with a few fellow scientists to sample the bacterial wildlife of SXSW-goers for a biology art project? No? Details are here.
Our bodies are wildernesses full of microorganisms, in and upon us, both battling each other and helping to keep us alive. We are outnumbered by our bacteria by orders of magnitude. Most of the species remain unidentified. So we set out to help people find out more about the biology on their bodies.
We collected quite a few body swipes, from pretty much any body region you can imagine. Yep, even there. The samples were plated, grown and are now available over at Bacterially.org for your viewing pleasure (or whatever feeling you get from it)!!! The anonymous samples are sortable by body region, too . . . if you're into that kind of thing. It was amazing to see people's reactions as they learned about the biology that's happening on their bodies every day, and the result is pretty awesome.
Special thanks to Christina from Synthetic Aesthetics for letting me be a part of this! She's been known to make cheese with these bacterial cultures before (for investigative use, not culinary), so stay tuned for that!
Bonus:Â We were set up at a bar collecting these samples and displaying our bacterial wonders, and the singer of a band stopped by to donate some cleavage bacteria and let Lindsay Patterson record this bacterial cheese rap. It's pretty amazing.
