Monday, February 9th

"Among New York Subway’s Millions of Riders, a Study Finds Many Mystery Microbes"

This past Thursday, researchers at Cornell developed the first map of microbes found on the New York City subway system.  The study was originally published in Cell Systems, explains the usefulness and development process of the "PathoMap"- or "pathogen map" that the researchers developed. With approximately 5.5 million people riding the subway on an average weekday, the surfaces touched are teeming with microorganisms and DNA. Surprisingly, it was found that almost half of the DNA found did not match any known organism, and only 0.2% of the DNA matched that of the human genome. Dr. Christopher E. Mason, the head researcher, originally got the idea for the study when dropping his daughter off at pre-school, and watching "her explore her new surroundings by happily popping objects into her mouth" Dr. Mason began to wonder "How much is being transferred, on which kinds of things?"  This lead him to study the NYC subway system, where adults often get a bit too close to one another.  According to the New York Times, the "PathoMap" is a baseline assessment, which can be used in the future to determine the potential spread of specific diseases, or even bioterrorism mitigation.