Discover the secret life of germs in, on and around us.

In ‘Humans: An all you can eat buffet’, we showed you some of the bacteria that grow in and on us. But obviously, we can’t see them, they are microscopic!

In the summer holidays of 2019, at our Superbugs Pop-Up Science Shop, we asked people to swab all sorts of body parts, so that we could grow up what bacteria they had on them.

We took samples from children’s and parents’ noses, tongues, throats, teeth and ears. From faces, hands, hair, belly buttons and armpits. From mobile phones, rings, wellies, the floor and a cat litterbox.

We put the swabs onto agar plates, which are jelly plates jampacked with the goodies that bacteria eat. Then we let them grow in our laboratory and took pictures of the bacteria and moulds that grew over the next 1-2 days!

So you can see that our body and surroundings are full of all sorts of different micro-organisms… Isn’t microbiology fascinating?

Well. And a bit yucky, admittedly. 🤢

*** Keep an eye out for news on upcoming Superbugs live events and you may get the chance to swab yourself! ***

Check out our Home Experiments section, with protocols on how to do your own Superbugs experiments!

Send us photos of your experiments and the outcomes — the successful ones as well as your epic fails!