What lurks within....

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If you’ve ever wondered how many bacteria reside inside your mouth, be reassured, scientists are actively at work on the question. So far, they’ve tallied roughly 600 distinct critters--including such beasts as Streptococcus mutans, a significant contributor to tooth decay, as well as many, many others less notorious.

In fact, the data are coming so thick and fast and the naming of the bugs has become such an anarchic free-for-all that this week scientists at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research announced they’re bringing order to the field. They’ve started a central clearinghouse for listing all things to do with mouth microbes--genes, proteins, names, you name it. The Human Oral Microbiome Database, as it’s called, is just one strand of a larger project aimed at tallying all the organisms that occupy the human body-- in/on the human mouth, skin, digestive tract, nose and female urogenital tract.

If you want to read more about (and see pictures of) the bacteria that normally live in, and on, us humans, you can also check out a chapter in Todar’s Online Textbook of Bacteriology for an impressive, illustrated list.

And if you’re interested in a little science experiment and have a petri dish to hand, you could always try making a kiss plate.

--Rosie Mestel

Photo: Valerie Ulene