Where and how you live strongly influences both the type and number of microbes you carry on your hands, according to a new international study led by scientists at Yale and Stanford.
The research identified and analyzed bacteria on the hands of women in Tanzania and graduate students in the United States, finding that bacterial populations were more similar among the subjects within a country than between subjects of different countries.
Published May 11 online in the journal Microbiology, the study also showed that the subject groups carried typical human skin bacteria in markedly different abundances and that each group carried distinct species.
http://news.yale.edu/2014/05/11/bacteria-your-hands-reflect-country-you-live
