Entries for December 2007

[T]he great British biologist and atheist JBS Haldane once said, when asked whether studying biology had taught him anything about the Creator: "I'm really not sure, except that He must be inordinately fond of beetles." (The Independent)

It's an understatement to say that beetles come in many varieties. They account for nearly a quarter of all described species. A quarter. Imagine a roll call of living organisms: sunflower, hammerhead, E. coli, beetle. Chestnut tree, carpenter ant, human, another beetle. The atheist Haldane didn't really believe that beetles' incredible diversity could be attributed to the Almighty. But neither could he have offered a thorough scientific explanation.

Scientists know some interesting facts about the microbes we wear on—and in—our bodies. And as of today, they're poised to learn a lot more.

They know, for example, that healthy skin is crawling with dozens of varieties of bacteria. On any given day, the left and right sides of a person tend to carry the same species, but the species she's covered in today may be very different from the ones she'll be wearing a few months from now.

They also know we each have far more bacteria living inside us than we have cells in our body. Intestinal bacteria have been estimated to exceed human cells by a factor of 10, and most of them aren't bad. In fact, people can get quite sick when their normal intestinal "flora" die. Some people with diarrhea-inducing imbalances in their colonic ecosystems have gotten better after doctors inserted a healthy person's fecal matter into their anuses. Gross but true. And approximately one in three people carries Staphylococcus aureus in his or her nose. That pathogen is nothing to sniff at: The antibiotic-resistant form known as MRSA is a growing threat to otherwise healthy people, and a recent study of European veterinarians found that 12.5 percent of them were unknowingly carrying that dangerous strain.

When science seems to take a stand on our romantic decision-making, people tend to get excited. So it's no surprise that Google News turned up more than 400 articles about new research suggesting that divorce is harmful to the environment. The gist of the study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that the average divorcée uses more resources—specifically electricity, water, and residential space—than does the typical person in a couple or a family.

But the study tells only half a story. By focusing on people's decisions to stay married or get divorced, it comes to an incomplete conclusion. The real issue is whether we live alone or live with others. Marital status is immaterial.