Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What the Mites On Your Face Say About Where You Came From (sciencemag.org)

Posted by samzenpus on from the hometown-bugs dept.

sciencehabit writes with news about how the hair mites you carry can be used to determine your ancestry. "Right now, deep in your hair follicles and sweat glands, tiny mites are feeding on dead skin cells, mating, and laying eggs. The microscopic arthropods, known as Demodex folliculorum, live on virtually all mammals—especially their faces—and cause no harm under most circumstances. Now, a new study shows that people of different ancestry carry different subgroups of the bugs, and that the mites' distribution throughout the global population may even reflect how our species has migrated and evolved over the course of history."

1 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Are we born with them? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

    When we are born we are so clean that even our stomachs do not have bacteria. It is hypothesized that our first dose of this bacteria comes from normal child birth and then we are put in our mothers arms so kissing and cuddling further transfers the bacteria. Is this cuddling and kissing where we get the first face mites too or are we born with them?

    In fact, for the first two weeks after birth, the immune system is actually suppressed (while the baby has the antibodies conferred from the mother, immune activity is suppressed). It is believed this is to get a head start in populating symbiotic bacteria in the stomach, intestines and skin.

    Presumably a lot of touching confers it as well - our skins are full of bacteria, and on it live some species that we live symbiotically with - being territorial, any foreign invader gets attacked by them before they have a chance to invade us.

    And we live in a very dirty world - there are more foreign cells in and on our bodies than there are human cells, so the merest touches really help spawn colonies on a baby. We're so dirty it probably isn't possible to get anything completely sterile - instead, by sterile we really mean free from contaminants that could cause harm. All the other stuff we live with doesn't really harm us, and we live in peace with them.