A team of researchers recently discovered that the NYC subway is crawling with germs. Here’s how grossed out/freaked out you should actually be.
New research found 562 different species of bacteria in the New York City subway system.
The Wall Street Journal created an interactive map of the findings (screen shot of that above).
BuzzFeed Life talked to one of the study authors, Chris Mason, Ph.D., geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, about the research, and just how grossed out you should actually be.
graphics.wsj.com / Via Wall Street Journal
1. Yes, it is so, so many bacteria — but most of them are totally not a big deal.
"The vast majority of what we found are benign or inert for human health," Mason says. And some of them may even be helpful to our health — like the bacteria associated with cleaning up toxins.
2. You should not be afraid to ride the subway, guys.
Mason isn't. In fact, he says he's even less freaked out now than he might have been before he did this study. "If anything, it makes me more confident," he says. "I ride the subway every day, I bring my daughter on it with me, and the study has actually made me much more confident to grab a pole and hang on than I ever was before."
3. It's true, the researchers don't even know what a lot of these bacteria even are.
"About half the DNA that we touch every day… we have no idea what they are," Mason says. "It's completely unclassified."
4. But that's an exciting thing, not scary. (At least for the researchers, anyway).
"We know based on these data that the vast majority of the DNA we touch is benign," Mason says. "And even though a lot of it is unknown, I get excited about that because I'm surrounded by things that have never been seen before that are right under my fingertips. Much like looking at a rainforest, even. I can explore it and find new species, different animals, different plants. So I find that very exciting and invigorating to think about. Not a concern."
The Wall Street Journal's interactive tool also lets you search the subway system by bacteria type. Shown here is antibiotic resistant bacteria. You can also sort by sunscreen, mozzarella cheese, and Kimchi and sauerkraut, if you're so inclined.
graphics.wsj.com / Via WSJ
5. That thing you read about the "germs that can cause bubonic plague uptown"? Don't sweat it.
Don't you think we'd notice if the bubonic plague were actually sweeping through our subway system and/or the Upper West Side?
"There's been no documented case of any of the diseases that are associated with some of the DNA we found," Mason says. "That's additional evidence that there's no reason whatsoever to be concerned. It's really a testament I supposed to what the immune system can do." The human body: AMAZING.
6. The more dense the population, the greater the diversity of bacteria.
"If you look at an average station in the Bronx, for example, it will have more unique species of bacteria than a station in Manhattan or Staten Island," Mason says, because the Bronx has greater population density.
7. But more diverse bacteria might actually be a good thing, especially for younger people.
This is due to the "hygiene hypothesis," Mason says. "It's a hypothesis being studied in microbiology that thinks about the immune system. Martin Blaser recently wrote a book about this, called Missing Microbes. The idea actually is that when you're younger, your immune system needs to have the ability for target practice, essentially — it needs to be exposed to antigens. In the absence of that, you'll actually have a higher risk of asthma and allergies later in life. So to some degree, the greater bacterial diversity found in the surfaces is probably a good thing." (He pointed out that they didn't study this specifically in their research, but it's a general idea that microbiologists are paying attention to lately.)
