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AUTHOR: SARAH ZHANG. SARAH ZHANG
SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
08.25.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 8:04 PM.
8:04 PM
WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMEhasgdfjbdfjb
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AUTHOR: SARAH ZHANG. SARAH ZHANG
SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
08.25.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 8:04 PM.
8:04 PM
WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMEhasgdfjbdfjb
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AUTHOR: SARAH ZHANG. SARAH ZHANG
SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
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WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENThasgdfjbdfjbhasgdfjbd
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SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
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WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENThasgdfjbdfjbhasgdfjbd
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rhAdvertisement.
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SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
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8:04 PM
WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENThasgdfjbdfjbhasgdfjbd
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rhAdvertisement.
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SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
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WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENThasgdfjbdfjb
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WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENThasgdfjbdfjb
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rhAdvertisement.
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SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
08.25.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 8:04 PM.
8:04 PM

WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENT

GettyImages-548000843
GETTY IMAGES
THREE YEARS AGO, I lived in a tiny New York City walkup with one human roommate
and untold billions of bacteria. I know this for a fact because I once swabbed f
our surfaces of my apartment and sent the samples in for sequencing with a citiz
en science project called Wild Life of Our Homes. Now, the scientists behind tha
t project have published a new paper about the microbes that lurk in household d
ust.
Back when I was swabbing the doorframe of my apartment, my roommate expressed no
t zero, but negative, interest in the results perhaps understandably, as bacteria
have gotten a bad rap over the years. But me, I m a science nerd. Three years ago,
the human microbiome was just bursting into the mainstream, and scientists were
just refining new tools to study bacteria out in the world. Mysterious bugs to
be found in my apartment? Sign me up!
When the bacterial data was first released to participants several months ago, I
spoke with Rob Dunn, a North Carolina State biologist who heads up Wild Life of
Our Homes. Dunn walked me through some of the thousand-plus kinds of bacteria f
ound on my door frame, including Sphingomonadaceae, a soil microbe, and Coryneba
cteriaceae, common in armpits. There was also, of course, also fecal-associated
bacteria, just as my roommate probably feared. This all seemed nice to know, but
I could already tell you there was soil and skin in my apartment.
As I paged through the study published today aggregating data from 1,200 homes,
I felt what has since become common reading microbiome papers: disappointment. N
ot because the science was bad but because the findings seemed underwhelming. Th
is study found that bacteria in household dust varies depending on the people an
d pets living in the house, while the fungi varies depending on the outdoor envi
ronment. Not exactly groundbreaking, right?
TKTK
Similarity of fungal (top) and bacterial (bottom) communities across the U.S. Si
milar colors indicate similar microbial communities. Barberan et al / Proc. R. S
oc.
It s perhaps unfair and definitely impatient of me to criticize. The tools for seq
uencing microbes in the environment are so new that scientists are only beginnin
g to know what they don t know. Up until just a few decades ago, everything humans
knew about microbes came from culturing them in the lab that is, growing them in
vials of nutritious liquid or petri dishes. But not all microbes can be cultured
; 90 to 99.9 percent cannot, depending on who you ask.
Then scientists learned to sequence the 16S rRNA gene, whose function is so fund
amental it s found in pretty much every living organism, allowing scientists to id
entify bacterial species by slight tweaks in its code. But 16S rRNA varies very
little from species to species, making it hard to distinguish between related ba
cteria. More recently, microbiologists have gotten into metagenomics, in which a
ll the genetic material in a sample is chopped up and then reassembled with algo
rithms running on powerful computers.
But metagenomics still has its limits. Those algorithms usually rely on referenc
e libraries of known genomes; if a particular bacteria completely unknown to sci
ence shows up, the algorithms don t really know to look for it. That s a false negat
ive, but metagenomics is also prone to false positives like when plague supposedly
showed up on the New York City subway.
Put another way, microbiology is still in its cataloguing phase, akin to 18th ce
ntury botanists pressing flowers into their notebooks. When I see the many micro

biology research projects cropping up from the kitty microbiome to koala microbiom
e to the open-source American Gut I think of Carl Linnaeus trudging through Sweden
cataloguing the country s plants and animals. Scientists are surveying the microb
ial world, but it ll be while before they amass enough knowledge to really figure
out what to do with it.
Back when I first spoke to Dunn, he mentioned he had began his career as a tropi
cal biologist. The switch to microbiology was eye-opening. Another person might
find the many bacteria in our houses gross, but he saw a kind of beauty. One of t
hings the data have shown me are these thousands of species and thousands of sto
ries of interactions among species says Dunn, Each and every one of them is comple
x. I, too, want to see those complex interactions unraveled. And I understand the
cataloguing must come first, but I wouldn t mind fast forwarding just a tiny bit
into the future.
Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.
BACTERIABIOLOGYMICROBIOLOGYMICROBIOMESCIENCE
Skip Social. Skip to: Latest News.
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) and privacy policy (effective 3/21/12). Your California privacy rights. The ma
terial on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or o
therwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast.

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rg
etg
rth
\rlenh'rbk\rkg\n
rhAdvertisement.
Skip Article Header. Skip to: Start of Article.
AUTHOR: SARAH ZHANG. SARAH ZHANG
SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
08.25.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 8:04 PM.
8:04 PM
WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENT
GettyImages-548000843
GETTY IMAGES
THREE YEARS AGO, I lived in a tiny New York City walkup with one human roommate
and untold billions of bacteria. I know this for a fact because I once swabbed f
our surfaces of my apartment and sent the samples in for sequencing with a citiz
en science project called Wild Life of Our Homes. Now, the scientists behind tha
t project have published a new paper about the microbes that lurk in household d
ust.
Back when I was swabbing the doorframe of my apartment, my roommate expressed no
t zero, but negative, interest in the results perhaps understandably, as bacteria
have gotten a bad rap over the years. But me, I m a science nerd. Three years ago,
the human microbiome was just bursting into the mainstream, and scientists were
just refining new tools to study bacteria out in the world. Mysterious bugs to
be found in my apartment? Sign me up!
When the bacterial data was first released to participants several months ago, I
spoke with Rob Dunn, a North Carolina State biologist who heads up Wild Life of
Our Homes. Dunn walked me through some of the thousand-plus kinds of bacteria f
ound on my door frame, including Sphingomonadaceae, a soil microbe, and Coryneba
cteriaceae, common in armpits. There was also, of course, also fecal-associated
bacteria, just as my roommate probably feared. This all seemed nice to know, but
I could already tell you there was soil and skin in my apartment.
As I paged through the study published today aggregating data from 1,200 homes,
I felt what has since become common reading microbiome papers: disappointment. N
ot because the science was bad but because the findings seemed underwhelming. Th
is study found that bacteria in household dust varies depending on the people an
d pets living in the house, while the fungi varies depending on the outdoor envi
ronment. Not exactly groundbreaking, right?
TKTK
Similarity of fungal (top) and bacterial (bottom) communities across the U.S. Si
milar colors indicate similar microbial communities. Barberan et al / Proc. R. S
oc.
It s perhaps unfair and definitely impatient of me to criticize. The tools for seq
uencing microbes in the environment are so new that scientists are only beginnin
g to know what they don t know. Up until just a few decades ago, everything humans
knew about microbes came from culturing them in the lab that is, growing them in
vials of nutritious liquid or petri dishes. But not all microbes can be cultured
; 90 to 99.9 percent cannot, depending on who you ask.
Then scientists learned to sequence the 16S rRNA gene, whose function is so fund
amental it s found in pretty much every living organism, allowing scientists to id
entify bacterial species by slight tweaks in its code. But 16S rRNA varies very
little from species to species, making it hard to distinguish between related ba
cteria. More recently, microbiologists have gotten into metagenomics, in which a

ll the genetic material in a sample is chopped up and then reassembled with algo
rithms running on powerful computers.
But metagenomics still has its limits. Those algorithms usually rely on referenc
e libraries of known genomes; if a particular bacteria completely unknown to sci
ence shows up, the algorithms don t really know to look for it. That s a false negat
ive, but metagenomics is also prone to false positives like when plague supposedly
showed up on the New York City subway.
Put another way, microbiology is still in its cataloguing phase, akin to 18th ce
ntury botanists pressing flowers into their notebooks. When I see the many micro
biology research projects cropping up from the kitty microbiome to koala microbiom
e to the open-source American Gut I think of Carl Linnaeus trudging through Sweden
cataloguing the country s plants and animals. Scientists are surveying the microb
ial world, but it ll be while before they amass enough knowledge to really figure
out what to do with it.
Back when I first spoke to Dunn, he mentioned he had began his career as a tropi
cal biologist. The switch to microbiology was eye-opening. Another person might
find the many bacteria in our houses gross, but he saw a kind of beauty. One of t
hings the data have shown me are these thousands of species and thousands of sto
ries of interactions among species says Dunn, Each and every one of them is comple
x. I, too, want to see those complex interactions unraveled. And I understand the
cataloguing must come first, but I wouldn t mind fast forwarding just a tiny bit
into the future.
Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.
BACTERIABIOLOGYMICROBIOLOGYMICROBIOMESCIENCE
Skip Social. Skip to: Latest News.
SHARE
SHARE
243
TWEET
464
PIN
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1
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Skip Latest News. Skip to: Comments.
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Do Not Stick the Stylus
d
TIPS AND TRICKS
Do Not Stick the Stylus
6 HOURS
Ashley Madison Hit With
hue
LEGAL BATTLES
Ashley Madison Hit With
6 HOURS
MORE NEWS
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Footer.

29 Spellbinding Space Facts That Prove Earth Is Boring

ALL THAT IS INTERESTING
The World's Most Mind-Blowing Natural Phenomena
MONEY
Money-Saving Tips From Billionaires That Everyone Should Know
WEBIOT
5 Best Free Team Management Tools
The Visible Millipede. The orange parts are the naughty bits, helpful in distin
guishing between species.
ANIMAL SCIENCE
Millipede Genitals, Now in Glorious 3-D!
8 HOURS
martian_20thCenturyFox
SPACE
How That Spinning Spacecraft From The Martian Would Work
8 HOURS
150512-1744-26a
CHEMISTRY
Welcome to Booze Science, Our Drunkest Video Series Ever
07.31.15
Cells in a flower petal.
BIOLOGY
A Smartphone Microscope Gets the Ultimate Test: The Amazon
1 DAY
GEOLOGY
VOLCANO ERUPTS ON THE ISLAND WHERE MH370 DEBRIS WASHED UP
1 DAY
WE RECOMMEND
BRIAN BARRETT
Stop Everything: You Might Actually Want a New iPod Touch
BRIAN BARRETT
Google s Ingenious Plan to Make Apps Obsolete
MARGARET RHODES
Netflix s Redesign Will Finally Ditch the Slow Carousels
ANGELA WATERCUTTER
New Star Wars Trailer Shows the First Order
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) and privacy policy (effective 3/21/12). Your California privacy rights. The ma
terial on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or o
therwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast.
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Skip Article Header. Skip to: Start of Article.
AUTHOR: SARAH ZHANG. SARAH ZHANG
SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.25.15.
08.25.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 8:04 PM.
8:04 PM
WHAT I LEARNED FROM SEQUENCING THE BACTERIA IN MY APARTMENT
GettyImages-548000843
GETTY IMAGES
THREE YEARS AGO, I lived in a tiny New York City walkup with one human roommate
and untold billions of bacteria. I know this for a fact because I once swabbed f
our surfaces of my apartment and sent the samples in for sequencing with a citiz
en science project called Wild Life of Our Homes. Now, the scientists behind tha
t project have published a new paper about the microbes that lurk in household d
ust.
Back when I was swabbing the doorframe of my apartment, my roommate expressed no
t zero, but negative, interest in the results perhaps understandably, as bacteria
have gotten a bad rap over the years. But me, I m a science nerd. Three years ago,
the human microbiome was just bursting into the mainstream, and scientists were
just refining new tools to study bacteria out in the world. Mysterious bugs to
be found in my apartment? Sign me up!
When the bacterial data was first released to participants several months ago, I
spoke with Rob Dunn, a North Carolina State biologist who heads up Wild Life of
Our Homes. Dunn walked me through some of the thousand-plus kinds of bacteria f
ound on my door frame, including Sphingomonadaceae, a soil microbe, and Coryneba
cteriaceae, common in armpits. There was also, of course, also fecal-associated
bacteria, just as my roommate probably feared. This all seemed nice to know, but
I could already tell you there was soil and skin in my apartment.
As I paged through the study published today aggregating data from 1,200 homes,
I felt what has since become common reading microbiome papers: disappointment. N
ot because the science was bad but because the findings seemed underwhelming. Th
is study found that bacteria in household dust varies depending on the people an
d pets living in the house, while the fungi varies depending on the outdoor envi
ronment. Not exactly groundbreaking, right?
TKTK
Similarity of fungal (top) and bacterial (bottom) communities across the U.S. Si
milar colors indicate similar microbial communities. Barberan et al / Proc. R. S
oc.
It s perhaps unfair and definitely impatient of me to criticize. The tools for seq

uencing microbes in the environment are so new that scientists are only beginnin
g to know what they don t know. Up until just a few decades ago, everything humans
knew about microbes came from culturing them in the lab that is, growing them in
vials of nutritious liquid or petri dishes. But not all microbes can be cultured
; 90 to 99.9 percent cannot, depending on who you ask.
Then scientists learned to sequence the 16S rRNA gene, whose function is so fund
amental it s found in pretty much every living organism, allowing scientists to id
entify bacterial species by slight tweaks in its code. But 16S rRNA varies very
little from species to species, making it hard to distinguish between related ba
cteria. More recently, microbiologists have gotten into metagenomics, in which a
ll the genetic material in a sample is chopped up and then reassembled with algo
rithms running on powerful computers.
But metagenomics still has its limits. Those algorithms usually rely on referenc
e libraries of known genomes; if a particular bacteria completely unknown to sci
ence shows up, the algorithms don t really know to look for it. That s a false negat
ive, but metagenomics is also prone to false positives like when plague supposedly
showed up on the New York City subway.
Put another way, microbiology is still in its cataloguing phase, akin to 18th ce
ntury botanists pressing flowers into their notebooks. When I see the many micro
biology research projects cropping up from the kitty microbiome to koala microbiom
e to the open-source American Gut I think of Carl Linnaeus trudging through Sweden
cataloguing the country s plants and animals. Scientists are surveying the microb
ial world, but it ll be while before they amass enough knowledge to really figure
out what to do with it.
Back when I first spoke to Dunn, he mentioned he had began his career as a tropi
cal biologist. The switch to microbiology was eye-opening. Another person might
find the many bacteria in our houses gross, but he saw a kind of beauty. One of t
hings the data have shown me are these thousands of species and thousands of sto
ries of interactions among species says Dunn, Each and every one of them is comple
x. I, too, want to see those complex interactions unraveled. And I understand the
cataloguing must come first, but I wouldn t mind fast forwarding just a tiny bit
into the future.
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BACTERIABIOLOGYMICROBIOLOGYMICROBIOMESCIENCE
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