You’ve Been Invaded by Aliens
Less than half of your body is human. Don’t worry about it
This is why science makes people nervous
It keeps coming up with uncomfortable discoveries; things that jolt us out of our assumptions about ourselves and demand that we question the evidence of our senses.
Like, the earth is not the center of the universe. That’s an oldie, but it’s still tough for some of us to accept. Also: cavemen did not ride dinosaurs and the earth is not flat. Otherwise, cats would’ve knocked everything off it by now.
More recently, scientists have begun exploring the human microbiome. And I’m talking recently: the papers reporting the final complete human genome sequence didn’t come along until 2022.
TLDR: knowing what constitutes “us” in our bodies has allowed researchers to look further into what else we’re composed of.
And it turns out, there’s a whole lot of what else.
We’ve been colonized. Here’s the deal: only about a third of the cells in your body, my body, or your favorite barista’s body are human.
The rest of what you think of as “you” is a vast population of microscopic critters living in you and on you.
