WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Microorganisms are everywhere. Bacteria are the abundant and diverse life form on the planet. And each environment -- whether it's the top of a smartphone or the underside of a human armpit -- features a unique combination of microbes.
In other words, humans and objects they carry have personalized bacterial communities -- a microbial fingerprint. And carriers can leave traces of these communities in the places they visit and on the things they touch.