Bacteria Live At 33,000 Feet

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It’s Alive! & Airborne In the midst of airborne sea salt and dust, researchers from Georgia Tech unexpectedly found thousands of living fungal cells and bacteria, including E. coli and Streptococcus. Courtesy Georgia Tech; Photo by Gary Meek

Earth’s upper atmosphere—below freezing, nearly without oxygen, flooded by UV radiation—is no place to live. But last winter, scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that billions of bacteria actually thrive up there. Expecting only a smattering of microorganisms, the researchers flew six miles above Earth’s surface in a NASA jet plane. There, they pumped outside air through a filter to collect particles. Back on the ground, they tallied the organisms, and the count was staggering: 20 percent of what they had assumed to be just dust or other particles was alive. Earth, it seems, is surrounded by a bubble of bacteria.

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2 Comments

  1. Hi, I have been through…and still am going through, 2 bouts of c-diff. I heard about the health benefits of Kefir but need to know is someone who is lactose intolerant to cows milk can eat this.

    • hellaD says:

      Hi Kate,
      Wow c-diff is really difficult. No pun intended. You can make kefir with nut milk, coconut milk etc if you can’t do the dairy. But the kefir culture will also break down all the lactose in the milk so you may find you can take dairy kefir.

      I also highly recommend looking into doing a fecal matter transplant. I have clients who have had very fast results with FMT. You can find out all the information you need to do it yourself here: http://www.powerofpoop.com

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