There's a whole world of stunning and strange microorganisms that scientists are just starting to discover. But doing so hasn't been a walk in the microbial park. To identify these microbes and to decipher their secrets, scientists have needed to think outside of the box, searching for microbes in some pretty odd and outlandish places.
For Joseph Mougous, a microbiologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Washington, that means putting people’s mouths to practice.
The Tiny Bacteria in Our Mouths
On our tongues and teeth are billions and billions of microbes, many of which have never been cultivated in labs. Oral swabs reveal the existence of these microorganisms, known as "microbial dark matter," which includes a subset of small bacteria that live off comparatively large bacteria.
