The Body's Bacteria (broadcast Friday, May 29th, 2009)

What lives on our skin? Dr. Martin Blaser, the chairman of the department of medicine at NYU School of Medicine, is trying to find out. After swabbing the arms of six people, Blaser and his lab found 182 different species of bacteria--thirty of which had never been seen before. (Credits: Music by Knife Crazy. Additional footage by MA Shumin. Produced by Flora Lichtman) See More Videos

A new study of the critters that live on the human body find that our skin is home to a much wider variety of bacteria than previously thought. While earlier findings had held that the human skin landscape skin is dominated mainly by Staphylococcus bacteria, new work published this week in the journal Science finds a much more diverse bacterial menagerie. The specific conditions on each body part -- from the dry deserts of a human forearm to the tropical jungles of the underarm to the often oily crease next to a nose -- play a large role in determining which bacteria will live there. We'll talk with one of the researchers about the study.