Ladies, your hands are a zoo. Sampling the bacterial DNA on human skin has revealed that while women's hands get washed more often than men's, they teem with a more diverse selection of germs.

What's more, the average person's hands probably carry at least 3000 different bacteria belonging to more than 100 species. This startling cornucopia may make it possible to tell which objects have been touched by someone, just by looking at the bacteria left behind.

Noah Fierer and colleagues at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the US swabbed the palms of 51 undergraduates coming out of an exam. They then used the PCR technique to amplify the bacterial DNA present, and sequenced the genetic material using a high-throughput method called pyrosequencing.

Previous surveys of skin bacteria involve growing the result of such swabs in culture, but many species were missed as not all the bacteria sampled grew. The new method caught 332,000 genetically distinct bacteria belonging to 4742 different species – a hundredfold increase on previous studies. Each student carried on average 3200 bacteria from 150 species on their hands.
Germ fingerprints

Everyone’s bacterial "fingerprint" was unique. All students carried known skin denizens such as Streptococcus, Staphylococcus and Lactobacillus, but 45% of the species were rare. Only five species were found on all the students' hands, while any two hands – even belonging to the same person – had only 13% of their bacterial species in common. Certain bacteria were more frequent on the dominant hand (right for a right-hander), others on the non-dominant hand.

Unexpectedly, women had different bacteria from men and significantly more kinds, even though women reported washing hands more often; bacterial diversity needs time to recover when hands are washed. In a follow-up experiment, the team tracked eight people after they washed their hands. Some bacteria preferred clean hands, other types showed up much later, but men always had fewer types of bacteria on their hands.

"We were pretty surprised to see such clear differences between men and women," says Fierer. "We don't know the causes." Differences in sweat and sebum production, hormones and even the use of cosmetics might be involved, but it could simply be that men's skin is more acid – acid environments tend to have less microbial diversity.

The feminine touch carries more germs - health - 03 November 2008 - New Scientist
I KNEW it!

Girls have cooties!

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"As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing, when their credit ran out, the game stopped."
--Marriner S. Eccles, FDR's fed Chairman. (1951)

No duh
Who picks up more crap and wipes your snotty nose?
Hello.

It's been a while since I've seen a come-back that fine.

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"As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing, when their credit ran out, the game stopped."
--Marriner S. Eccles, FDR's fed Chairman. (1951)

[quote=saltwn;45502]No duh
Who picks up more crap and wipes your snotty nose?
It's not that girls have more cooties, it's the fact that men have less. We are naturally cootie-unfriendly. I'm also wondering about the whole "men wash their hands less often"/acidic environment angle... Since urine is mildly acidic, maybe washing our hands after we take a leak isn't such a good idea. Maybe we'd be better off if we peed on our hands. Let's do a little study:
foundit, hold out your hands.....

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

On the acidity theory, I do know male sperm survive better in one PH level, while female survive better in the opposite. I don't remember which was acid and which was base though.
Another thought. How come nurses and moms don't catch every little germy disease out there? Maybe women build up an immunity through constant contact with E-coli, strep, staph and what have you.
Just my thoughts.

I'm just thrilled to no end about the fact that when someone uses the facilities and then proceeds to the salad bar without washing their hands--every utensil I thouch that they have touched means I am pretty much eating their private parts.

YUMBO...

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Especially when they also just left nine yards of toilet paper on the commode seat cause they were out of sanitary covers.


My husband doesn't like to eat in a restaurant where the cook is a male. I think that's telling.

What's worse is if you eat at a place where you think that's an upgrade...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I can visualize some interesting law enforcement applications if this is the case.