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HuckleB

(35,773 posts)
Wed Feb 3, 2016, 05:03 PM Feb 2016

Your beard doesn't contain poop, but it could help develop new antibiotics

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article58140198.html

"Microbiologist Adam Roberts went digging through men's beards in search of poop.

Instead, he found a tantalizing suggestion of a breakthrough in the global fight against drug-resistant infections. Which, for a researcher working fervently to help avert the antibiotic apocalypse that the World Health Organization, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Roberts himself believe may be looming, is not a bad trade off.

...

Regardless of its scientific merits, the story did pique the interest of Roberts, a microbiologist at University College London who is part of a team of researchers there searching for new antibiotics that could help stave off the growing drug-resistance crisis.

For almost a year now, he has been running a program called "Swab and Send," which invites ordinary people to submit swab samples from the world around them to be tested for antimicrobial properties. He's gotten samples from computer keyboards, Egyptian bank notes, the floor of the London Undergound's Circle Line train, the inside of a toilet in a public bathroom - "That's real dedication to go anywhere near that," Roberts joked - and has so far isolated 20 promising strains capable of killing bacteria and yeast.

..."


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Now, we're talking.
8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Your beard doesn't contain poop, but it could help develop new antibiotics (Original Post) HuckleB Feb 2016 OP
My facial hair lumberjack_jeff Feb 2016 #1
Oh, man. I'd already forgotten about that OP! HuckleB Feb 2016 #2
If you leave the lid up when you flush, it probably does have some poop in it... Human101948 Feb 2016 #3
Who needs a study for their PhD? HuckleB Feb 2016 #4
Watched some about that on youtube...people put the seat down when you flush. Rex Feb 2016 #5
Well... HuckleB Feb 2016 #7
As long as they smell like warm biscuits. Rex Feb 2016 #8
Yeah, there's actually studies being done Press Virginia Feb 2016 #6
 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
5. Watched some about that on youtube...people put the seat down when you flush.
Wed Feb 3, 2016, 06:03 PM
Feb 2016

That smell? Tiny shit molecules attaching themselves to your olfactory bulb. Barf.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
8. As long as they smell like warm biscuits.
Thu Feb 4, 2016, 12:53 AM
Feb 2016

This is making me think of Kellogg and his obsession with poo.

 

Press Virginia

(2,329 posts)
6. Yeah, there's actually studies being done
Wed Feb 3, 2016, 06:37 PM
Feb 2016

on freeze dried poop and weight loss. And, the possibility of using it to replace anti-biotics.

There's even a research company that will pay people $300 a week to poop at their research facility 5 days a week

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