
Wherever You Go, Your Personal Cloud of Microbes Follows - pmcpinto
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/22/441841735/wherever-you-go-your-personal-cloud-of-microbes-follows
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pervycreeper
>"There are a lot of reasons why we might want to know if some nefarious
character's been in a certain room in the last few hours," Meadow says. "Maybe
there's a way to use microbes for that."

We have just witnessed the birth of a pseudoscience.

~~~
DiabloD3
I swear I read a scifi novel from the 70s or 80s that had this as a plot, I
just can't think which one.

~~~
swasheck
michael crichton wrote Prey which is about something similar to this (i don't
want to say too much so as to not introduce a spoiler). that wasnt from the
70s or 80s, though.

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agentgt
This sort of reminds me of the Silo series of books by Hugh Howey. If you have
not read the books and like scifi ... obligatory spoiler alert...

One of the themes in the book is the impending terrorist doom that could
unfold by using nanotechnology to target certain demographics (ie genocide). I
think nanobots reading human DNA would be fairly hard but nanobots recognizing
biomemes might not be. That is using biomemes might be easier than DNA
fingerprinting for nanobots. I could be completely wrong on my assumptions not
to mention I have no background in bio or nano tech.

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lobo_tuerto
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but could this be connected to what some
people call the _aura_?

Or the reason why you might dislike or like someone when you are around
him/her?

~~~
delinka
It's been suggested by at least one study[1] that we prefer our potential
mates' odors if their own immune system is different enough from our own. One
might indeed be translating 'odor' into 'aura' subconsciously. I suspect OP my
explain how that odor is transmitted from the immune system to the outer
world. Further elaboration and maybe disagreement at [4]

1 - Wedekind,C., Seebeck, T., Bettens, F. & Paepke, A. J.MHC-dependent mate
preferences in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 260,245 - 2491995. |
ISI [2] | ChemPort [3] |

2 -
[http://links.isiglobalnet2.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?&GWVersio...](http://links.isiglobalnet2.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?&GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=Nature&SrcApp=Nature&DestLinkType=FullRecord&KeyUT=A1995RJ57600002&DestApp=WOS_CPL)

3 - [http://chemport.cas.org/cgi-
bin/sdcgi?APP=ftslink&action=ref...](http://chemport.cas.org/cgi-
bin/sdcgi?APP=ftslink&action=reflink&origin=npg&version=1.0&coi=1:STN:280:ByqA2Mjjs1c%3D&pissn=9999-9999&pyear=2001&md5=8ef761887eeb6ef29e9dd933802f6568)

4 -
[http://www.nature.com/news/2001/010307/full/news010308-10.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2001/010307/full/news010308-10.html#B2)

