Emily Chan
Your bathroom may look clean, but in reality, there are microscopic germs lurking on every surface. For instance, toothbrushes and showerheads are teeming with invisible viruses that have remained undiscovered until recently.
The discovery was made after researchers studied samples they collected from 96 showerheads and 34 toothbrushes from bathrooms in the United States. They found 614 viruses among the samples, and many of them are new to science.
The thought of all those germs on your toothbrush might make your skin crawl, but the researchers say it shouldn’t be a cause for alarm.
The newfound viruses don’t infect humans. They are called bacteriophages or “phages,” which infect bacterial cells instead.
The viruses could also help develop treatments against antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Currently, scientists are working on “phage therapies” that use viruses to replace or use in conjunction with traditional antibiotics.
“The number of viruses we found is absolutely wild,” said Erica Hartmann, the lead author of the study and a professor of microbiology at Northwestern University.
“We found many viruses that we know very little about and many others that we have never seen before. It’s amazing how much untapped biodiversity is all around us. And you don’t even have to go far to find it; it’s right under our noses.”
Previously, it was estimated that there are about one trillion species of microbes on our planet, and scientists still haven’t discovered 99.9 percent of them.
They have explored the deep ocean and other locations to learn more about microbial life, but the researchers behind the new study chose not to stray too far from home.
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