http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2012/06/14/germs-are-necessary-to-keep-humans-healthy/
And like environmental ecosystems, your microbial makeup varies widely
by body part. Your skin could be like a rainforest, your intestines
teeming with different species like an ocean.
Staphylococcus aureus harmlessly in their noses or on their skin but can infect others.
First, the researchers had to collect tissue samples from more than a
dozen body sites — the mouth, nose, different spots of skin, the vagina
in women, and from feces. Then they teased apart the bacterial DNA from
the human DNA, and started analyzing organisms with some daunting names:
Lactobacillus crispatus, Streptococcus mitis, Corynebacterium accolens.
Another surprise: There isn't one core set of bacteria that perform
those functions. A wide variety can do the same jobs, the researchers
found.
Consider the intestinal superbug named C. difficile that people all too
often catch while they're in the hospital, and that sometimes kills.
Microbiology: Learning about who we are
Microbial inhabitants outnumber our body's own cells by about ten to one. These residents have become the subject of intensive research, which is beginning to elucidate their roles in health and disease.
Structure, function and diversity of the healthy human microbiome
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