Scientists freeze poop to save mankind

A preventive measure against our extinction

Poop can be a lifesaver. According to a supercomputer prediction, within the next 100 years, many species could disappear from Earth but small organisms living in your gut are the most threatened, according to a supercomputer prediction.

The average human body contains about 30 trillion cells, but the human microbiome is made up of an additional 39 trillion microbial cells, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

In order to preserve human gut bacteria, Adrian Egli, director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University of Zurich, has frozen feces samples from all over the world in a special repository known as the Microbiota Vault.

The communities of microscopic organisms that live inside of us are being dramatically affected by our changing lifestyles. These changes may one day endanger our survival.

You won’t obviously experience a problem with your health if an animal goes extinct. A specific disruption to your microbiome can have far-reaching effects, though.

The delicate communities that live inside each of us are being greatly disturbed by the widespread use of antibiotics and the rising popularity of fast food around the world. Therefore, alterations in the human microbiome brought on by urbanization, industrialization, and globalization can be related to the growth of numerous diseases and conditions in recent decades, including obesity, diabetes, asthma, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, Alzheimer’s, and autism.

Around 80% of the bacteria that live inside humans are unknown. Viruses, microbial eukaryotes, and archaea are more examples of this unexplored diversity. Together, this indicates that there is a risk of permanently losing important knowledge and opportunities at a time when science is only beginning to comprehend the importance of our microbial environment and the microbiome for our health and their potential.

Adrian began gathering samples of human waste from all across the world in 2018 and concentrated on the stools of those living in rural and, preferably, pre-industrial countries.

“We’re not just looking for people who are living very isolated lives, it can also be people who are more farm-based, and just different from western”, Adrian explained.

“People who are on the brink, in transition from a rural lifestyle to an urban lifestyle, are very interesting”, Adrian added.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which keeps “spare copies” of priceless plant species in case the originals are lost, served as inspiration for his proposal.

He claims that in order to prevent humanity from extinction, he is seeking out an even bigger poop storage facility such as Swiss army shelters.

The first batch of samples must be defrosted after two years, and Adrian’s initiative has received financing of roughly £825,000 ($1 million) to do so.