Listen to today's Environment Report.
The first major results are in from the American Gut Project. It’s a citizen science project to get a better understanding of the microbial communities inside our bodies.
People pay $99 to send in a sample – a swab from their hands, their mouth, or a stool sample.
Daniel McDonald is the project’s scientific director at the University of California-San Diego.
“So it turns out that most of the people sending us samples tend to send us fecal samples. We think it must just be the sexy thing to do,” he says. “But I think a lot of individuals are sending us these samples because they’re curious to learn a little bit more about these organisms that are important for your health that we are just beginning to understand in the scientific community.”