Human gene catalog shows it's mostly a mystery

Reuters ^ | May 20, 2010 | Maggie Fox

[decimon]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – They live in us and on us, helping digest food and keeping acne at bay, and researchers said on Thursday that most of these germs are turning out to be new to science.

The first look at 178 different microbes that live in or on the human body shows that more than 90 percent of their genetic sequences were unknown and raise questions about how scientists classify species among micro-organisms.

"Most people don't even realize how much microbial diversity we have on and in us," said Karen Nelson of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, who leads the ongoing study.

"We are dependent on them for digestion of plant material and some vitamins," she added in a telephone interview.

Yet scientists know very little about the many hundreds of different types of bacteria, viruses and yeast that inhabit the skin, mouth, scalp and most of all, the gut.

>

In 2006 Steven Gill of the State University of New York in Buffalo estimated that 90 percent of the cells on the human body are actually bacteria.

[decimon]

Crawling with them ping.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Right out of Jack Handey?

Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words “mank” and “ind.” What do these words mean? It’s a mystery and that’s why so is mankind.

[bgill]

I’m having a bowl of them right now. OMG, have y’all tried plain yogurt with peanut butter (optional spoon of sugar)?!? HaPpY MoUtH!!!

[Paladin2]

" A. Did you know that the word "race car" spelled backward still spells "race car"?

B. Did you know that "eat" is the only word that if you take the 1st letter and move it to the last, it spells its past tense "ate"?

C. And have you noticed that if you rearrange the letters in "illegal immigrants" and add just a few more letters, it spells out: "Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing, kid-producing, violent, non-English speaking assholes and take those other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, goat-loving, raggedy-ass bastards with you"?

25 posted on Thursday, May 20, 2010 9:15:29 AM by cweese (Hook 'em Horns!!!) "

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks decimon. They live in us and on us, helping digest food and keeping acne at bay, and researchers said on Thursday that most of these germs are turning out to be new to science. The first look at 178 different microbes that live in or on the human body shows that more than 90 percent of their genetic sequences were unknown and raise questions about how scientists classify species among micro-organisms. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[neverdem]

A Catalog of Reference Genomes from the Human Microbiome

[colorado tanker]

[SunkenCiv]

I like it!