How is your Belly Button like a Rainforest???

What do YOU store in your belly button? When you're in your mama's belly, your lifeline is stored in there; When you're a toddler, you may store your acorns in there; When you're a grown up, it might be your lint storage facility. Belly Buttons have their own personalities, own faces (no two look alike) and surprise....their own bacterial community.

Dr. Robert Dunn and a team of researchers conducted a recent study of 60 belly button swabs and cultures. They call it the Belly Button Biodiversity Project.  They found over 2000 distinct species of bacteria. The average belly button hosted about 50 varieties of bacteria!!!!! Many of these bacteria were quite rare! They consider that once they widen their belly button testing sphere they will stumble upon many more rare and amazing bacteria families.

Dr. Dunn and his team theorized that belly buttons and their uniqueness are akin to rainforests, vast playgrounds for new and undiscovered varieties of plants, bacteria, fungus, animals etc. Always something new to find. "The belly button is one of the habitats closest to us, but remains relatively unexplored"

They're now on to the Belly Button Biodiversity Project 2.0. Cant wait for those findings!

Now THAT'S how your Belly Button is like a rainforest. Bet you didn't know you were carrying around all that coolness (and bacteria). I would say that puts you on the cutting edge of science!

You're amazing.