The human body plays host to trillions of microorganisms. So many, in fact, that they outnumber our cells 10 to 1! Fortunately many of these microbes are vital to human health.
Using a cell-culture dish filled with a nutrient broth commonly used in labs, Tasha Sturm, a microbiology tech at Cabrillo College in California, gently stamped her 8-year-old’s hand on the plate. She then incubated the petri dish at body temperature and 2 days later, the bacteria and yeast that were transferred to the dish had built a blooming colony (see featured photo above).
Here is a close up of the giant flower-shaped bloom in the lower right corner of the photo:
And here is a close up of that one bacterial outlier that doesn’t belong to her kid (probably a contaminant):
Source: Smithsonian