Study: Women lead men in bacteria, hands down

[thundley4]

WASHINGTON – Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies. A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. And everybody has more types of bacteria than the researchers expected to find.
"One thing that really is astonishing is the variability between individuals, and also between hands on the same individual," said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.
"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The researchers aren't sure why women harbored a greater variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to so with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have more acidic skin than women.
Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he said.

Women have cooties.  Who would have thought that little boys were right all along. 

[Chris_]

Women have cooties.  Who would have thought that little boys were right all along.  :popcorn:

The bigger question is, given the physiological predilection towards bacteriological contamination, why did the human race not die out thousands of years ago?

This is the kind of scientific idiocy (and I am a scientist, sort of), that has caused people to get antibiotics when they didn't need them and over-cleaning, leading to resistant strains of infections and kids that can't resist the slightest infection.

Soap and water washing in a reasonable amount are all anyone needs -- on their person or in the kitchen.

[jtyangel]

Women have cooties.  Who would have thought that little boys were right all along. 

Amazing how the cootie factor gets replaced by the coochie factor within a decade or so. 

[JohnnyReb]

Amazing how the cootie factor gets replaced by the coochie factor within a decade or so. 

Males are explorers, going where no man has gone before.......but that only happens one time.

Confucius say, "Virgin like balloon, one prick, all gone."