http://www.freep.com/article/20110820/NEWS01/108200420/Straight-poop-Bacteria-from-dog-feces-winter-sky-above-Detroit-Cleveland-study-finds?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
Straight poop: Bacteria from dog feces in winter sky above Detroit, Cleveland, study finds1:48 AM, Aug. 20, 2011 | 65 Comments
BY TINA LAM
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Move over, smog. When it comes to stuff in the air over Detroit, a team of researchers has found that in winter, it's bacteria from dog poop that hovers over the city.
A team of researchers studied 100 air samples collected in four Midwestern cities, including Detroit, looking for bacteria, and found that the most dominant type in winter is the same one found in canine feces.
Cleveland also had high counts of doggy-doo bacteria, while Chicago had less and tiny Mayville, Wis., surrounded by cornfields, had little.
What does it mean? Maybe not much. The researchers said that although the idea of airborne fecal bacteria sounds icky, it's possible that metropolitan areas across America all have it and there may be no health effects at all.
"What it really says is how little we know about the bacteria we breathe in every day," said Noah Fierer, an ecology professor at the University of Colorado and one of the authors of the study.
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