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Woman replaces soap with bacterial spritz formulated from the skin of Cambridge company's founder

In the New York Times, Julia Scott reports on her experiment in giving up soap in favor of AOBiome's ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in a tube.

The theory is that the bacteria digest the stuff that makes us stink and help ward off more harmful bacteria that find easier pickings on the skin of people who use soaps that remove the more helpful parts of our "human skin biome."

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Comments

I need another shower just reading this.

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You bathe your clothes and your dishes in bacterial protein.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtilisin

It happens. This isn't much different.

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Your second paragraph is one long sentence.

Is Hannibal Lecter involved in this somehow?

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Just maybe?

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Humans have been dosing things with beneficial or unharmful bacteria and fungi to help outbreed the harmful stuff since long before we had any idea what we were doing.

Skyr, yogurt, cheese, beer, wine, pickles etc.

There was a reason the Puritans took beer on a long ocean voyage, and it wasn't the alcohol content - it was the yeast outbreeding other organisms. They just didn't know that. They did know that people didn't generally get sick drinking the beer versus stored water.

This is all glossified with biotech verbage, but it really isn't much different than nomads stirring the skimmed milk with a special wooden spoon they used time and again to stir the skimmed milk.

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Do you have info/cite on the milk "starter" spoon idea? I did a quick google but didnt find anything about the nomads/mild would love to read into that history if you have anything readily available. dont have time today to search so hoping that you will be our uhub usual infosource
j

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The M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+ has not showered for the past 12 years.

I had a college roommate who, no matter how often he showered, had a pungent odor. He never had to buy soap - people were always giving him deodorant soap! This product sounds like what he really needed.

This whole field is vast ignorance compared to drug therapies despite enormous potential health benefits. Imagine obesity, diabetes and so many other conditions some day treated by having the right mix of gut flora.

Oh, and while horses and dogs often take dirt baths, I had a cat that did, leading to people thinking she was homeless!

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A bacteria cocktail rinse isn't going to remove viruses, toxic metals, or petroleum products from your skin like soap does.

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Viruses are usually of very little consequence to your skin. Swallow or inhale, perhaps, but not transdermal.

Petroleum products? We are talking office nerds. We also banned lead in gasoline ages ago.

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Lead is still in tons of flexible plastics and residual in the environment from years of that gasoline being burnt in cities. Our old building stock is full of it in dust. Be it in paint or dust settled in ducts, carpets, furniture, plumbing fixtures/brass/solder/glazing, etc. It is going to be a very long time until it is a rare element to come in contact with.

Bacteria isn't the only stuff which gets on your skin. Plenty of chemicals and other particulates land on you throughout the day which are best washed off before migrating into your pores or other openings.

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