DailyDirt: NYC Subways Filled With Unknown Species
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
No one would want to lick a handrail on the New York City subway because it’s just gross — and who knows what kind of germs and stuff are living in the urban grime? Well, now we have a better idea. Thousands of samples have been analysed, and the results are published. A city-wide metagenomic profile of NYC could tell us demographic data and confirm census polls, and a map of the data is available online. Follow a few of the links below for a bit more info.
- A biological study of the NYC subway system has mapped and identified (where possible) the DNA found on handrails, turnstiles, kiosks and other places commonly touched by gazillions of people all the time. They found at least 637 known species of bacteria — as well as viruses, fungi, microscopic animals… and a bunch of DNA (48% of all their samples) that hasn’t been identified yet. [url]
- Specimens of anthrax and bubonic plague were also found in NYC subway stations, as well as drug-resistant bacteria. Human DNA made it into the top five most abundant species in NYC subways, after insects and microbes. [url]
- This DNA study of a “healthy” ecosystem highlights just how little we actually know about the species all around us. It may be time to start sequencing the cockroach genome so we know what will still be alive when humans aren’t around anymore. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: anthrax, bacteria, biology, bubonic plague, cockroaches, dna, ecosystem, humans, microbes, nyc subway, species
Comments on “DailyDirt: NYC Subways Filled With Unknown Species”
fringe science ahoy...dna not known
i know its form walternates universe
I foresee a run on white cotton gloves after this.
Maybe all those mom’s from the 50s and 60s got it right.
Old News
This is old news. The Onion broke a similar story back in June:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/anthropologists-classify-43-new-species-of-weirdo,36332/
“NYC Subways Filled With Unknown Species”
One percenter wallstreet types can confirm.
Of corse your going to hate this but this is important Big Data to collect in order to begin to estabish a baseline we can then use to detect for and surveil against biological attacks. It would be good for everyone at techdirt , and your readers, to read an upcoming book ‘future crimes’, which pretty much gives the rationale, although perhaps not explicitly, for the actual as opposed to paranoid motivations behind Big Surveillance. Pretty much also explains why a Constitutional scholar would nevertheless surprise the nation and himself by being so , er, flexible about things like the 4th Amendment….
Reality always holds all the cards that matter and determines the outcome of every battle. Best first, therefore, know what it looks like. Only after that can you safely set about the business of calibrating your moral compass, your sense of outrage, etc. etc.
If too much of what you agitate for turns out to be factually and catastrophically wrong, and the discredited bulk ends up taking the rest of your voice down with it.