Six Pounds of You Isn't You

Researchers have recently mapped 99 percent of the approximately 10,000 types of microbes that populate our bodies . . . 100 trillion bacteria, weighing six pounds, and while this isn't as sexy as discovering the Higgs-Boson in the Large Hadron Collider, it probably has more siginificance to our everyday lives: our unique microbiome assists in the digestion of food, trains our immune system, and protects us from harmful bacteria . . . and bacterial imbalances have been shown to cause obesity, mood disorders, and obesity . . . bacteria can even cause specific behaviors in mice and rats-- toxoplasmosis gondii is spread from cats to mice and rats, and makes rats and mice less afraid of cats, so that they are easier prey . . . and I love this because it's something else to blame, if you get sick or have about of toxic flatulence or simply act whacky, then it might not be you causing this . . . it might be your bacteria (and soon enough, we will have a legal clause for this . . . instead of the "insanity defense," we will have the "bacterial defense").