MICROBIAL FINGERPRINTING

It’s a slightly unsettling thought that each of us sheds around 30 million bacterial cells from our bodies every hour. They waft into the air and cling to objects we’ve touched, like furniture and mobile phones. The community of microbes that live on and in our bodies, our microbiome, is also unique. Soon, criminals may be linked to a crime scene by the trail of bacteria they haplessly leave behind. In one study, Dr James Meadow, then at the University of Oregon, found that people could be identified simply from the invisible cloud of bacteria they left in the air – even when the air was sampled four hours after they had left the room.