Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: thedoc on 22/06/2012 14:53:02

Title: How do intestinal microbes influence immunity?
Post by: thedoc on 22/06/2012 14:53:02

Any old bacteria won't do: to be healthy, an animal requires a unique consortium of microbes in its intestines, US scientists have revealed.

Read the whole story on our  website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news-archive/news/2593/)

  

Title: Re: How do intestinal microbes influence immunity?
Post by: CliffordK on 22/06/2012 20:39:34

Interesting.

There was a NPR special recently about human body flora. (http://www.npr.org/2012/06/15/155110478/mapping-the-microbial-make-up-of-healthy-humans)  One of the things they discussed is that each person's (and each community's) flora is different.

Perhaps in the future, scientists will come up with an ideal flora makeup, far beyond just eating unpasteurized yogurt.

If we start colonizing the moon and space, perhaps there will be an opportunity to decide which microbes to bring along, and which ones are best left home on Earth.  It is a good point that bacteria is as important as Eukaryotes in any terraforming or habitat construction.