The dirty realness : researchers who swob underground cars and just the ticket machines in Boston discover surprisingly depleted number of harmful microbes . They intend to use this data as a service line to help forestall future epidemic and other public wellness crises . The squad published their findings in the journalmSystems .
For the study , the scientists headed into Stations of the Cross along the tube system ’s Red , Green , and Orange line on three separate weekdays in May and October in 2013 . They swabbed the touchscreens and sides of slate machines , as well as the seats , seat backs , pole , and paries grasp inside train railcar , cautiously recording the precise placement of the swabbing web site . Back in the lab , the researchers picked through the swab ’ microbial communities , creating a DNA profile for each situation .
They constitute that the public transit environment was positively teeming with bacteria and other microorganisms . pole and mitt grips were liberally smeared withPropionibacterium , Corynebacterium , Staphylococcus , andStreptococcus — mintage all unremarkably found on human cutis and in our mouths . Seats hostedCorynebacteriumand the vaginal bacteriaGardnerella . ( It ’s important to note thatGardnerellacan easily be transmitted through vesture . ) And plant bacteria were found all over out-of-door touchscreens . There were no major differences between train station or lines .
So yes , germs were everywhere , but the presence of germs is n’t necessarily a bad thing , according to Curtis Huttenhower , a computational biologist and elderly author on the survey .
“ We were surprised to find that the microbes that we collected on surfaces that the great unwashed bear upon — and sometimes sneeze on — had low telephone number of unreassuring pathogens or antibiotic resistance cistron , ” Huttenhower say in a press argument . “ These environments have drastically down in the mouth virulency profile , in fact , than are observed in a typical human catgut . ”
Now , just because the subway was n’t disease - ridden does n’t mean these finding are useless . Far from it , Huttenhower says . “ Our findings launch a baseline against which deviations can be used as an early warning organisation to monitor public health . ”
Know of something you think we should cut through ? e-mail us at tips@mentalfloss.com .
