Armpit Cheese?
Every time I am reminded of Christina Agapakis’ unique twist on synthetic biology research, I smile. It’s such a wonderful blend of design, art and pure cool. I had the pleasure of helping her with one of her “body bacteria” projects at this year’s SXSW conference.
To put it bluntly, the cheeses you are looking at were cultured using bacteria swabbed from the armpits (and elsewhere) of human bodies. The species of bacteria living on us, and the volatile (read: “smelly”) compounds that they produce aren’t that far off, chemically speaking, from what we normally find in cheese. I mean, some cheese smells like feet because feet smell like feet bacteria, know what I mean?
It challenges our perception of what is “gross” and what is “good”. Check out Christina’s site to read more about this cheesy project, and follow her Scientific American blog, Oscillator.
Want more cool/gross synthetic biology projects? Check out E. chromi, a project to use colored poo to diagnose medical conditions.
Source: agapakis.com
