房间里的灰尘正在暴露你的行踪！
House Dust Organisms Reveal Location and Residents
房间里的灰尘正在暴露你的行踪！
The particular fungi found in house dust can tell investigators where you live, and the bacteria in the dust can give away who and what you live with
房间灰尘中的特定真菌能够帮助研究者辨别你的居住地，而灰尘中的细菌则会泄露居住者的身份
撰文/播音：Erika Beras
翻译：张雪
审校：史静雯
The dust that accumulates in the corners of your house does more than just cause allergies and aggravation—it’s also teeming with clues about where you live and who you live with. That’s the finding of a study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. [Albert Barberán et al, The ecology of microscopic life in household dust]
Researchers had volunteers at nearly 1,200 homes across the U.S. collect indoor and outdoor dust samples. The average home’s dust contains about 5,000 types of bacteria and 2,000 types of fungi.
房间的角落里积攒的灰尘可不止引起过敏反应和病情恶化，它还能为识别居住地和居住者提供不少线索。这是近期发表在《英国皇家学会学报》（Proceedings of the Royal Society B）上的一项研究成果（Albert Barberán et al, The ecology of microscopic life in household dust）。研究者们采集了美国近1200户志愿者家庭室内及室外的灰尘样本，结果显示，每户家庭的灰尘中平均含有5000种细菌和2000种真菌。
The fungi gave away a lot about a home’s location. Different regions have different fungal populations, and thus so do houses within those regions. For example, dwellings around the Great Lakes had very different fungi than did homes in Arizona—because most household fungi originate outside and come in either on people’s clothes or through windows and doors.
这些灰尘中的真菌能够泄露不少关于家庭住址的秘密。不同的真菌种群通常分布在不同的地区，因而我们能够通过分析真菌种群判断出住户所在的地区。例如，五大湖地区（the Great Lakes）和亚利桑那州（Arizona）居民家中的真菌就大不相同——因为大部分的家庭真菌都是靠沾染在人们的衣物上或通过门窗由室外进入室内的。
As for the bacteria, those were strong indicators of the identity of the home’s residents. Much of the bacteria was shed by the human body and was a pretty good indicator of a home’s gender ratio. The single-celled organisms also showed whether a pet shared the home—cats and dogs make their own contributions to the indoor bacterial menagerie.
而细菌则是鉴别房客的有力助手。多数细菌都是由人体散落而来，因而很容易判断出一个家庭的性别比例。这种单细胞生物还能鉴别出家里是否养了宠物——猫猫狗狗们也会带有专属于它们的细菌类别。
The research could inform forensic investigations and allergy studies.
该研究成果也可以为司法鉴定及过敏研究提供更多线索。
In the meantime, what can we take from these findings? Well, you can clean up dust but you can’t change its composition. That is, unless you move. Or make some changes in the pets and people you live with.
与此同时，我们还能从中了解些什么呢？你或许能打扫干净灰尘，但却不可能改变它的组成。也就是说，只有当我们移居或是家庭成员发生变化时，家庭灰尘中的真菌和细菌才会随之发生变化。
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京ICP备11000850号-1
京公网安备11010502039775号 信息网络传播视听节目许可证0111611号
国家科技基础条件平台