CAN MICROBES PASS DNA TO THEIR HOST’S BABIES?

[Tusk]

Poo turns naked mole rats into better babysitters
25th October 2015 | nature.com | Animal Life
Naked mole rats are among the ugliest creatures in the animal kingdom, and they engage in acts that seem repulsive — such as eating one another’s, and their own, faeces.

Now researchers have found one biological motivation for this behaviour. When a queen mole rat’s subordinates feed on her hormone-filled faeces, the resulting oestrogen boost causes the beta rats to take care of the queen’s pups, according to results presented on 18 October at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

http://www.nature.com/news/poo-turns-naked-mole-rats-into-better-babysitters-1.18606

Poop Goes Mainstream: Fecal Transplants Get Past the 'Ick'


In an era of thousand-dollar pills and DNA-altering technologies, doctors are increasingly turning to a seemingly crude technique to treat chronic intestinal problems: poop transplants.

http://www.livescience.com/52542-fecal-transplants-science-update.html

Intestinal worms 'talk' to gut bacteria to boost immune system
EPFL researchers have discovered how intestinal worm infections cross-talk with gut bacteria to help the immune system.
http://www.sciencecodex.com/intestinal_worms_talk_to_gut_bacteria_to_boost_immune_system-168355

The Tantalizing Links between Gut Microbes and the Brain

 A growing body of data, mostly from animals raised in sterile, germ-free conditions, shows that microbes in the gut influence behaviour and can alter brain physiology and neurochemistry.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-tantalizing-links-between-gut-microbes-and-the-brain/

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[vero]

dna is in everything in our body. this includes sex cells. so when two people get down to business they pass down their dna.

[Tusk]

Your Colon May Be Home to an Entirely New Form of Life

14th November 2015 gizmodo.com | Humans

A new genetic analysis of human gut bacteria is turning up some really weird critters—so weird, in fact, that some biologists are speculating we’ve found an entirely new domain of life. We should take that possibility with a healthy dose of skepticism. But here’s why it’s even being discussed.

http://gizmodo.com/your-gut-may-be-home-to-an-entirely-new-form-of-life-1742212794

Single course of antibiotics can mess up the gut microbiome for a year

In a battle against an infection, antibiotics can bring victory over enemy germs. Yet that war-winning aid can come with significant collateral damage; microbial allies and innocents are killed off, too. Such casualties may be unavoidable in some cases, but a lot of people take antibiotics when they’re not necessary or appropriate. And the toll of antibiotics on a healthy microbiome can, in some places, be serious, a new study suggests.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/single-course-of-antibiotics-can-mess-up-the-gut-microbiome-for-a-year/

For me, it shows we are more immersed in our environment then we realise and begs the question of where do we end and it begin.