HYGIENE: IS THERE SUCH
THING AS ‘TOO CLEAN’?
Some people choose not to wash with soap,
saying our modern, sanitary lives cause
allergies, damage our immune system and
even upset our microbiome. But can cleanliness
really be a bad thing?REALITY CHECK ANALYSISWhy would some people choose not to wash?
Our skin is covered in more than 1,000 types of
bacteria, plus viruses, fungi and mites. Don’t go
bathing in antibacterial hand gel, though: most of
these are harmless, and some are beneficial to us.
This ecosystem is called the ‘skin microbiome’,
and can actually protect us from illness. The
bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, for instance,
produces pseudomonic acid, which protects us
from staphylococcal and streptococcal infections.by AMY BARRETT, w i t h t h a n k s
to ER IK A BER ENGUER
Amy is editorial assistant at BBC Science Focus. Erika is
a senior research associate at the Ecosystems Lab at
the University of Oxford.DISCOVER MORE
a
For more stories like this, visit our website at
sciencefocus.com/realitycheck2 shift in species there. Droughts increase the mortality
of those trees that prefer rainforest conditions, while
the more drought-tolerant species become favoured
by the new climate.”
How close are we to a tipping point? Unfortunately,
it’s hard for scientists to predict. “It depends on how
much we preserve the forest,” says Esquivel-Muelbert.
“We need to act now to prevent high mortality rates
and try to reverse this trajectory.”
The state of the Amazon rainforest is a concern for
the world, says Dr Shanan Peters, a geoscientist at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Not just because
of the oxygen it produces, but because of the carbon
dioxide it locks up. “To say the Amazon is the ‘lungs
of the planet’ is kind of a misleading statement,” says
Peters. “We could burn every living thing on Earth- all the trees, all the grass – and still not run out of
oxygen for many, many generations of humans, but we
would be devastated by the doubling of CO 2 that would
happen instantly. The story of what’s happening right
now in the rainforest is, in my view, articulated by
the impact it’s going to have on CO 2. [The Amazonia
fires] are exacerbating our climate crisis.”
“For me, [this year’s fires] are clearly linked to the
rhetoric of the president,” says Esquivel-Muelbert,
commenting on the environmental policies of Brazil’s
President Jair Bolsonaro, which have been accused of
failing to protect the rainforest. “But also, in a way,
everyone is responsible. The actions we carry out here
in the UK affect the Amazon. We have to realise the
things we consume might come from farms in the
Amazon... the global community needs to realise that
everyone needs to help to preserve the rainforest we
have remaining.”
Visit the BBC’s Reality Check website
at bit.ly/reality_check_ or follow
them on Twitter @BBCRealityCheckREVIEW
HYGIENE: IS THERE SUCH
THING AS ‘TOO CLEAN’?
Some people choose not to wash with soap,
saying our modern, sanitary lives cause
allergies, damage our immune system and
even upset our microbiome. But can cleanliness
really be a bad thing?REALITY CHECK ANALYSISWhy would some people choose not to wash?
Our skin is covered in more than 1,000 types of
bacteria, plus viruses, fungi and mites. Don’t go
bathing in antibacterial hand gel, though: most of
these are harmless, and some are beneficial to us.
This ecosystem is called the ‘skin microbiome’,
and can actually protect us from illness. The
bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, for instance,
produces pseudomonic acid, which protects us
from staphylococcal and streptococcal infections.byAMY BARRETT,w i t h t h a n k s
toER IK A BER ENGUER
Amy is editorial assistant atBBC Science Focus. Erika is
a senior research associate at the Ecosystems Lab at
the University of Oxford.DISCOVER MORE
a
For more stories like this, visit our website at
sciencefocus.com/realitycheck2 shift in species there. Droughts increase the mortality
of those trees that prefer rainforest conditions, while
the more drought-tolerant species become favoured
by the new climate.”
How close are we to a tipping point? Unfortunately,
it’s hard for scientists to predict. “It depends on how
much we preserve the forest,” says Esquivel-Muelbert.
“We need to act now to prevent high mortality rates
and try to reverse this trajectory.”
The state of the Amazon rainforest is a concern for
the world, says Dr Shanan Peters, a geoscientist at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Not just because
of the oxygen it produces, but because of the carbon
dioxide it locks up. “To say the Amazon is the ‘lungs
of the planet’ is kind of a misleading statement,” says
Peters. “We could burn every living thing on Earth- all the trees, all the grass – and still not run out of
oxygen for many, many generations of humans, but we
would be devastated by the doubling of CO 2 that would
happen instantly. The story of what’s happening right
now in the rainforest is, in my view, articulated by
the impact it’s going to have on CO 2. [The Amazonia
fires] are exacerbating our climate crisis.”
“For me, [this year’s fires] are clearly linked to the
rhetoric of the president,” says Esquivel-Muelbert,
commenting on the environmental policies of Brazil’s
President Jair Bolsonaro, which have been accused of
failing to protect the rainforest. “But also, in a way,
everyone is responsible. The actions we carry out here
in the UK affect the Amazon. We have to realise the
things we consume might come from farms in the
Amazon... the global community needs to realise that
everyone needs to help to preserve the rainforest we
have remaining.”
Visit the BBC’s Reality Check website
at bit.ly/reality_check_ or follow
them on Twitter @BBCRealityCheckREVIEW