Enlarge / BERLIN, GERMANY – JANUARY 13: Illustration about ‘Darknet’. A man with a hood is sitting on a laptop on January 13, 2017 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images) (credit: Getty | Thomas Trutschel )
WASHINGTON, DC—Your computer keyboard and your significant-other likely have something in common: they’re both marked by your microbial signature.
In a small pilot study, the living prints on oft-touched office equipment allowed researchers to pinpoint the individuals using them, as well as those individuals’ romantic partners. Although microbial shedding has long been known to happen, the early results are a step forward in researchers’ long-standing efforts to turn smatterings of our microbial companions into snitches to solve crimes.
Microbes offer a real advantage over DNA-based forensics, Katherine Bates, lead researcher of the study and a biologist at the US Air Force Academy, told Ars. “You can control whether you’re leaving DNA behind,” she says. It’s much harder to keep all your microbes in line. Bates, along with several cadets, presented the work at the American Society for Microbiology’s Biothreats conference being held in Washington, DC this week.
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Source: Ars Technica – Your office equipment can reveal the identity of your special someone