NYTimes | Have you ever been on the subway and seen something that you did not quite recognize, something mysteriously unidentifiable?
Well, there is a good chance scientists do not know what it is either.
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College released a study
on Thursday that mapped DNA found in New York’s subway system — a
crowded, largely subterranean behemoth that carries 5.5 million riders
on an average weekday, and is filled with hundreds of species of
bacteria (mostly harmless), the occasional spot of bubonic plague, and a
universe of enigmas. Almost half of the DNA found on the system’s
surfaces did not match any known organism and just 0.2 percent matched
the human genome.
“People
don’t look at a subway pole and think, ‘It’s teeming with life,’ ” said
Dr. Christopher E. Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College
and the lead author of the study. “After this study, they may. But I
want them to think of it the same way you’d look at a rain forest, and
be almost in awe and wonder, effectively, that there are all these
species present — and that you’ve been healthy all along.”
Dr.
Mason said the inspiration for the study struck about four years ago
when he was dropping off his daughter at day care. He watched her
explore her new surroundings by happily popping objects into her mouth.
As is the custom among tiny children, friendships were made on the
floor, by passing back and forth toys that made their way from one mouth
to the next.
“I
couldn’t help thinking, ‘How much is being transferred, and on which
kinds of things?’ ” Dr. Mason said. So he considered a place where
adults can get a little too close to each other, the subway.
Thus
was the project, called PathoMap, born. Over the past 17 months, a team
mainly composed of medical students, graduate students and volunteers
fanned out across the city, using nylon swabs to collect DNA, in
triplicate, from surfaces that included wooden benches, stairway
handrails, seats, doors, poles and turnstiles.
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