Here’s a caution to criminals: forensics is about to get even more high-tech. It turns out that, aside from your traditional fingerprint, you also have a bacterial fingerprint. An emerging field of study involves the detection of the numerous variety of bacteria that live on our skin. As we go about our day, we leave traces of these little critters on the things we touch, each of us having our own unique mix of germs. One study showed that the average human hand contains about 150 species of bacteria with only about 13% shared by any two people. Another study involving a computer mouse (left untouched for 12 hours), the computer’s owner and 270 random people found that the closest match for the bacterial colonies on the mouse belonged to the computer owner. Researchers say that bacterial fingerprinting will someday facilitate identification of smudged fingerprints, in addition to determining who has touched things like fabrics and highly textured materials. [via AP News]
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