Invasion of single-cell body snatchers

Researchers have discovered that humans aren’t humans so much as we are walking petri dishes of single-cell organism called microbes.

Yes, that means we are covered with fungus, bacteria and mold. And, no, we are most definitely not in charge.

Rob Knight, who is like a rock star of microbial researchers (complete with a website at Knightlab.colorado.edu), says that if we could separate microbes from human cells then the blob of microbes would be about equivalent to the size of the human brain. This is all fun and games, but he also points out that, because microbes are so much smaller than human cells, the microbe blob has more cells than the whole human body does.

Yes, that means we are outnumbered. We are, in fact, the minority in our own bodies.

Researcher Julie Segre told nbcnews.com reporter Maggie Fox for “Body Odd” that humans have one main type of fungus on most of the surface of our bodies, but our feet have about a bajillion of them. Well, OK, she didn’t really say how many types, but Fox reported the feet are “covered” with different varieties of fungi.

Are we surprised by this? Didn’t our mothers tell us that we were going to get athlete’s foot from the locker room floor? This just confirms that creepy suspicion.

In reality, though, you can catch dandruff from others, too, because it turns out that some types of dandruff are caused by fungus, too. Somehow that’s creepier. Thanks, Julie Segre, for that lasting fear.

But let’s head back over to Knight Lab where those folks are mapping the bacteria of the body and saying that every area of the body, both external and internal, has its own set of bacteria. It’s like having a family tree for each of these sets of bacteria, and it makes the human body a forest, of sorts.

The set of bacteria for the skin could be, say, an elm family tree, the bacteria in the mouth a juniper, and the bacteria for the gut is, maybe, a ponderosa pine.

But here’s one of the we-are-so-weirdly-not-in-charge-of-ourselves things: Not all gut bacteria are created equally. Some people have, maybe, a fir bacteria tree and others an oak or something because Knight and company found that gut bacteria is different between overweight people and skinny people.

And when they thought, hmmm, I wonder if the weight caused the bacteria or the bacteria the weight? the strange folks at Knight Lab turned to their lab mice and inserted skinny bacteria into a fat mouse — the fat mouse lost weight.

You get what that means, right? They transplanted poo-to-be from one mouse to the other. And it was a good thing ... that they are now doing with humans

It also means we are not in charge of our bodies. It turns out who we are isn’t only about DNA.

We are born blank, microbe-free slates and collect our microbes throughout our lifetime from the very instant we begin exiting the sterile environment of the womb.

Some of those microbes are our archenemies.

And they live inside us.

This does not sound good.

(Don't touch me, just don't, at [email protected].)