'Human Cheese' Using Belly-Button Bacteria

[Kazimiera]

People Are Making 'Human Cheese' Using Belly-Button Bacteria



If you saw this sign at a science museum, would your instinct be to leg it in the other direction or lick your chops and head on in?



Personally, my gut would be screaming "run." But this past Friday, visitors to the Science Gallery in Dublin paid money for the privilege of smelling cheeses made from human bacteria. And not just any bacteria: The germs were sourced from several prominent personalities such as food writer Michael Pollan and Olafur Eliasson of New York City waterfalls fame. Each of these luminaries took the time to massage their noses, armpits, bellybuttons or toes with sterile swabs that they sent back to the museum. There, scientists used the bacteria to produce fuzzy, off-white cheeses that revoltingly "smell, and taste, of the body odour of the donor," reports Dezeen, which has all the necessary close-up photos of the stuff.

Regarding those tasting notes, you'll just have to take the word of the duo behind this stomach-churning endeavor, chemist Christina Agapakis and odor expert Sissel Tolaas, because museum visitors were not actually allowed to eat the cheese. The project was meant more as a way to explore synthetic biology and the far reaches of our species' microbial landscape. "Many of the stinkiest cheeses are hosts to species of bacteria closely related to the bacteria responsible for the characteristic smells of human armpits or feet," say Tolaas and Agapakis. "Can knowledge and tolerance of bacterial cultures in our food improve tolerance of the bacteria on our bodies?"

This grimmest of food experiments is not the only eldritch thing brewing at the Science Gallery. There's also an exhibit devoted to how human placentas could be used to deliver dolphin babies, which one visitor reports "freaks the hell out of me." And don't forget this other one showing how you could color your own poop in the interests of science; it actually helps diagnose stomach ailments such as ulcers and worms. But people seem to be reserving their most intense disgust for the human cheese, at least to judge from this comment card:




Source: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/art...bacteria/7659/

[arcticwolf]

Why not use vaginal yeast/bacteria? Imagine market potential this idea has!

Horny teenagers, lonely dweebs, old dudes, etc etc. Sky is the limit!

I'm patenting it, right here right now!

[portusaus]

I shivered after reading that. I don't consume milk or anything containing it, and I'm most averse to cheeses and yogurts that have bacterial colonies within them. Once you kick this stuff out of your diet, your body doesn't recognize it as food anymore. Humans are the only mammal that consumes milk after infancy, and the only species that consumes the milk of other species.

But this? Belly button bacteria? How far will we go?

[Rudel]

I love hardcore cheese and feast on it, but it's bit yucky on the concept. Though I think they're just blowing it out of proportion. Give any cheese to smell to Americans and they'll say retarded shit like "smell, and taste, of the body odour of the donor".

I don't consume milk or anything containing it, and I'm most averse to cheeses and yogurts that have bacterial colonies within them.

The bacterial colonies are good for your health. The people obsessed with cleanness of food and stuff end up unhealthy and weak.

[portusaus]

I love hardcore cheese and feast on it, but it's bit yucky on the concept. Though I think they're just blowing it out of proportion. Give any cheese to smell to Americans and they'll say retarded shit like "smell, and taste, of the body odour of the donor".


The bacterial colonies are good for your health. The people obsessed with cleanness of food and stuff end up unhealthy and weak.

I've heard that before, and while the bacteria might be beneficial, cow's milk has way too much fat and protein in liquid form for humans. Plus, any mammals milk has hormones and estrogenic compounds to help their baby develop. Drinking milk, eating cheese etc. exposes you to things that are supposed to be causing a calf to gain hundreds of pounds in a short amount of time. We are hunter-gatherers, and practices such as agriculture, sedentarism, and the lack of natural selection are not good for our health.

[Rudel]

We are hunter-gatherers, and practices such as agriculture, sedentarism, and the lack of natural selection are not good for our health.

You might be a hunter-gatherer, we're not. Civilization spurted of our agriculture and sedentarism, not from roaming illiterates with lactose intolerance.

[portusaus]

You might be a hunter-gatherer, we're not. Civilization spurted of our agriculture and sedentarism, not from roaming illiterates with lactose intolerance.

Yes. But my point is that civilization is not good for our health.

We were all hunter-gatherers, including nomadic tribes that have lived off mobile grazing for longer than civilizations have been around. We are bipedal, powerful-brained omnivorous primates with opposable thumbs. Tapping away at computer keys, eating cheese and feeding goldfish are not things we've evolved doing for the overwhelming majority of our biological existence.

[Rudel]

Yes. But my point is that civilization is not good for our health.

Except it is. It provides stability and protection. Mobile populations are much more fragile.
The French territory had a population of a few tens of thousands of individuals before agriculture. After that, the worst we've ever had was around 6 millions. Sedentary life is the winning strategy as a species.

Tapping away at computer keys, eating cheese and feeding goldfish are not things we've evolved doing for the overwhelming majority of our biological existence.

Species that only act according to the majority of the biological existence disappear. They lack flexibility.

And even with the hygienic plagues brought by sedentary life, I wouldn't bet on the average life expectancy of a hunter-gatherer.

[armenianbodyhair]

[portusaus]

Except it is. It provides stability and protection. Mobile populations are much more fragile.
The French territory had a population of a few tens of thousands of individuals before agriculture. After that, the worst we've ever had was around 6 millions. Sedentary life is the winning strategy as a species.


Species that only act according to the majority of the biological existence disappear. They lack flexibility.

And even with the hygienic plagues brought by sedentary life, I wouldn't bet on the average life expectancy of a hunter-gatherer.

The health of a species is not related to how many individuals there are among them. I'm referring to physical and genetic health. Civilization causes sedentarism (poor posture, low muscle tone, excessive fat stores), weird and incomplete diets, irregular sleeping patterns, incest, radiation, and air, water, and food pollution. Hunter gatherers, which is our biological niche: get plenty of exercise, sleep regularly, eat naturally (and if they're successful, then heartily) and otherwise find their health in balance and without most of the problems we have today. Yes, lifespans are longer, numbers are greater, and a greater percentage of individuals are well fed in a civilization, but that doesn't mean that they're healthier.