Check out this story from the LA Times that describes the miraculous treatment of a common and debilitating intestinal infection using fecal transplants. Yes, you read that correctly: fecal transplants. This medical advance is a direct result of our growing appreciation for the immense diversity of microbes that inhabit the human body ecosystem.....and the important ecosystem services this diversity can provide. Check out these two recent scientific articles describing recent advances in our understanding of the human microbiome:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7402/full/nature11234.html
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0032118
And this link to the Human Microbiome Project: http://commonfund.nih.gov/hmp/
And this cool interactive feature from Scientific American (were the picture above comes from): http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=microbiome-graphic-explore-human-microbiome
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