Did you know you are emitting your own personal microbial cloud?

John von Radowitz writes at The Mirror that

Every human on earth has a cloud of germs surrounding them at all times - and it is almost as distinct to that person as a fingerprint.

The "microbial cloud" contains millions of bugs that are put out from various pores and points in our bodies.

According to experts, the cloud hangs around a person's body at all times and each individual cloud has a signature that could be read by carrying out genetic analysis of the bacteria.

Scientists were able to identify individuals from a group of volunteers just by sampling germs from the air around them.

The noxious nimbus consists of combinations of microbes emitted from our bodies that vary from person to person.

Scientists who tested 11 volunteers identified thousands of different types of bacteria in 312 samples of air and dust taken from a chamber in which each participant was asked to sit alone.

Most of the chamber occupants could be identified within four hours by matching them to their bugs.

It may improve understanding of the way infectious diseases are spread in buildings, say the scientists.

Identifying microbial clouds may also, like fingerprints, be useful to forensic investigations. One possibility is using bacterial traces to track people's movements, although it is unclear whether individuals could be spotted in a crowd.

Humans typically shed around a million microscopic particles from their breath, skin, clothes and hair per hour, many of which contain bacteria, said the researchers.

The scientists wrote: "Our data make clear that an occupied space is microbially distinct from an unoccupied one, and reveal for the first time that individuals occupying a space can emit their own distinct personal microbial cloud."

Read more here.