Daily Mail
October 5, 2018
Scientists have outlined a plan to build a ‘Noah’s Ark of beneficial germs’ to preserve critical microbes found in the human body before it’s too late.
The idea draws on a precedent set by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, which houses nearly one million samples in effort to protect crop diversity in the event of a doomsday scenario.
The so-called global microbiota vault would similarly collect beneficial microbes from populations that have maintained microbial diversity as the rest of the world loses theirs due to antibiotics, processed diets, and other aspects of urban society.
A team led by researchers at Rutgers University New Brunswick says a doomsday vault could help us ensure humanity’s long-term health in the face of planet-wide loss of microbiota diversity, which they claim is a threat on par with climate change.
There are trillions of microbes living in the human body, many of which promote our wellbeing.
But in urbanized parts of the world, microbial diversity has plummeted.
This article was posted: Friday, October 5, 2018 at 7:45 am
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