There are 9 thousand species of fungi and bacteria with which we live in our homes. Most of them, however, are harmless
They nestle in the sofas, between the sheets, in the wardrobes. They stand there, quietly, watching us from the top of a painting or from the bottom of the floor. There are 9 thousand species of fungi and bacteria with which we live in our very fragrant CASE, almost always disguised in that apparently harmless dust that we also remove with a certain regularity.
A new study University of Colorado-Boulder leaves no way out: house dust teems with life and with us is a myriad of invisible germs. But there is a but: it is mostly a harmless companions, which hardly carry diseases or allergies.
OUR OFFICE - For this analysis, which is part of the citizen science project "The Wild Life of Our Homes”(“ The Wild Life of Our Homes ”) - coordinated by Noah Fierer - the researchers genetically examined the dust taken from 1.200 US apartments. They cataloged and mapped fungi and bacteria and identified different species depending on the place where the house stood, who lived there (women or men) and the presence or absence of animals.
House dwellers sent the researchers samples of dust from your own home taken from various places, including those that are rarely cleaned. Scientists have thus analyzed them and discovered the existence of many microscopic creatures to which they have also given a name: Aspergillus, Penicillium, Alternaria and Fusarium are the most common fungi and molds, while among the bacteria there are staphylococci and streptococci, which are generally found on human skin, but also germs contained in faeces (Bacterioides and Faecalibacterium).
For bacteria, on the other hand, “we found different microorganisms in homes inhabited only by women or only by men. Some bacteria are in fact more common on the female body and others on the male body ", says Noah Fierer who coordinated the study. In short, what is clear is that the composition of the bacterial population in a house is influenced by several variables: a family of only women will have different bacteria from one composed only of males, and whoever has a dog with him will have still different ones. .
But is there to worry about this silent domestic army? Apparently not. “We don't have to worry about the germs that populate our homes - concludes Fierer. They are around us, on our skin and in the environment around us, and for the most part they are harmless ".
Germana Carillo
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