MUMMIES SPEAK

ABOUT MICROBES, MIGRATION, AND MORE

- Galadriel Watson

Mummies are the stuff of horror movies: blank-eyed creatures shuffling toward us with arms outstretched, tattered linen wrappings trailing behind them like filthy streamers. Or maybe you've seen actual mummies inside glass cases in museums, with leathery skin, shrunken cheeks and browned teeth, immobile and eternally at rest. Either way, mummies don't have much to say.

Except they do-the real ones, at least. They can speak volumes to scientists who know how to listen.

Usually, mummies and microbes are two things that refuse to interact. Microbes are tiny organisms that play many roles in the human body. After someone dies, microbes aid in decomposition, or breaking down the body. A person can be mummified only if these tiny creatures can't do their jobs. As the body gets preserved, possibly for centuries to come, so do its microbes.

Two studies have used mummies to find out more about microbes. The scientists looked closely at the microbes preserved in places like the mummies' stomachs, colons, and fossilized feces. Their findings are helping us better understand microbe evolution, human history, and the human-microbe relationship.

Ancient Antibiotic Blasters

Our bodies' microbiomes are swimming with bacteria. Most of these live happily within us, tagging along quietly or even doing us good. Sometimes, though, nasty bacteria set up shop. You may get ill or get an infection. To fight these harmful bacteria, your doctor might prescribe an antibiotic.

Antibiotic medicines are fantastic for getting rid of bacteria that harm us. But bacteria, like all living creatures, want to survive. If the bacteria keep encountering the same antibiotic, they learn how to protect themselves from it-by developing antibiotic-resistant genes. This means that while the medicine is trying to do its work, these genes are fighting against it, stopping the medicine from being as effective as it should be.