A multitude of different bacteria are roiling in your navel and Jiri Hulcr would like a picture of it.
Hulcr, a biologist, is director of the Belly Button Biodiversity Project, which started both in fun and with a serious scientific aim.
So far, they’re dazzled by “the ecology and large-scale diversity” they’ve found inside several hundred people’s belly buttons, he told the Star on Thursday.
Which means each person’s navel appears to a unique “microbiota fingerprint” that’s stuffed with many kinds of bacteria, good and bad.
It was originally conceived as fun with the potential to make it science,” Hulcr said. “Now it is transcending into the more rigorous, which is no less fun. This is when the real excitement starts, at least for me.”
North Carolina State University project biologists, who identify themselves on their website with a Petrie-dish view of what’s in their own navels, are now studying “little snippets of DNA” to break the bacteria down to its most identifiable level.
“There is a hugely important end point” to the project, Hulcr said.
“We want to know how many kinds of bacteria live on us, permanent residents and non-residents. A lot of the bacteria people connect with disease, that people call germs, are just things that are living on us.
“It is when there is a problem with the immune system that they become pathogenic.”
Which is why none of the project scientists use antibacterial soap or hand sanitizers.
“Maybe projects like this will convince people that there is so much life on their own skin that they had no idea about. With insane cleanliness, we’re just making more resistant bacteria.”
The BBBP would like to “go as big as possible,” starting with the entire United States and then moving globally.
Why belly buttons? Even in our hyper-santized age, few people specifically scour their navels with soap during bathing, he said.
“Even if you wash yourself nicely, the bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. Density is not related to washing.”
One of their prime collecting grounds has been the nearby North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, where a project booth at the entrance had solicited volunteers to turn over a navel swab.
The analysis remains confidential and is given only to the belly button bacteria owners. Some are so proud of their navel cultivations, Hulcr said, they use the magnified image as their Facebook photo.
“At first, people are a little freaked out,” Hulcr admitted. “As with so many things, it takes an explanation and then people have fun with it and everybody agrees.”
The scientists have found, though, that little boys in particular remain wary.
“Little boys are really worried for some reason that something bad is going to happy to their belly button.”