Nerding out on bacteria

I enjoyed the refreshers on cell biology, bacteria and viruses.  It's actually the latest information being released about bacteria that is most exciting to me.  I heard an NPR podcast several months ago about the unique ecosystem of bacteria that inhabit each person and how they shape our individual personalities.  The scientist talking said that in one study they were able to take gut bacteria from a "timid" mouse and implant the samples into a "brave" mouse and vice versa.  The results were ground-breaking.  The once timid mouse took on brave characteristics, and the brave mouse became more timid.  In the medicine world, fecal transplants are starting to be "a thing", with people donating their flora-ful poop at donation sites to help those in need of *inspired* bacteria to rectify their digestion and overall health.  It's seriously saving lives and is fairly simple in theory.  But I wonder, will the donees take on characteristics of their poop donors?

I found this great blog by a guy that is even more excited about bacteria than I am and has gone forth and synthesized several articles and interesting research into one.  Check it out:

http://ianchadwick.com/blog/infestations-microbes-parasites/

Most notably, one of my favorite parts of this article are from an article written recently by the Atlantic about swabs taken from individuals' belly buttons:

Instead of taking your fingerprint, maybe police should swab our belly buttons with Q-tips. No, that’s ridiculous, actually. But the idea illustrates a point made by a group of North Carolina-based researchers in their new Belly Button Biodiversity (BBB) project. Last month, the group published results of their first of many experiments, in which they swabbed 60 belly buttons and identified a total of 2,368 species of bacteria. People’s individual profiles were snowflake-ily, bacterially unique.

Going further, they were able to find only 8 (!!!) species that all of those people had in common.

I'm interested in finding a crossover in TCM, anybody out there have any input or experience?

"to see the world in a grain of sand..."

This entry is in response to the Water, Air, Earth, Fire article about the periodic table, 30 elements, universe, Jung, the amorous hug of art and science.  I've often marveled over the fact that we came from stardust, we are the Stuff of the universe--expansive, precise, and perfect.  I read somewhere once that water is neither created or destroyed on our planet, that the 85% or so of the water contained in my body has been recycled millions of times through the bodies, plants, animals, rivers of the world.  We are one.  And yet, for as dynamic and connected as we are, we are still just big kids in a gigantic sandbox.  Lately, I've seen a couple of episodes of Cosmos, the modern version spin-off of Carl Sagan's original series.  We now know so much more about our universe, that our universe is quite possibly just a drop in an ocean of other universes.  To juxtapose that thought with the microcosm of the organization of our atoms, cells, systems (since we're talking about biochemistry here, lol),  it really is incredible to think that the early philosopher, Hermes, had it right:  "As above, so below".  But what is the part of the elements in our varied imaginations, the ability to fantasize, marvel, love, and create?  Is that too an evolutionary response?  Maybe one day we will be able to explain everything in terms of science.  Until then, I'm going to relish discovery and mystery, art and science, and making the most of my magnificently insignificant existence. :-)