So much of our daily technology first appeared in farfetched Hollywood offerings 20, 30, OK, even 40 years ago.
Smartphones, keyless cars, responsive computer screens, holographic keyboards, chip-based disease diagnostics, genetics-based medicine — the list goes on.
But although shows such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Twilight Zone, Hello Down There and the Jetsons might have successfully presaged some aspects of today’s culture, other formerly futuristic shows missed the boat altogether.
Or, rather, scientific understanding wasn’t sufficiently advanced at the time of their making for the resulting movies to withstand the scientific test of time.
Take Gattaca. The 1997 U.S. sci-fi movie depicts a future, eugenics-driven society, in which children are conceived through genetic manipulation so they possess their parents’ best hereditary traits.
Vincent Freeman, conceived outside the eugenics program and facing genetic discrimination, poses as an accepted member of society by using a donor’s hair, skin, blood and urine samples.
The masking allows him to get his dream job, but he must groom and scrub down daily to remove his own genetic material, and pass daily DNA and urine tests using the donor’s samples. An errant eyelash of Freeman’s own, found at the scene of a crime, triggers an intensive search for the disguised Freeman.
The premise is all well and good, and the science portrayed is basically OK, for 19 years ago. (The film’s title derives from the first letters of DNA’s four nucleobases: guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine.) Fortunately, the film predated awareness of the microbiome. That information would have challenged the story’s logic.
The human body plays host to bacteria, fungi, viruses and other single-celled organisms that are unique to each of us, but we’ve realized only recently that the microbes living in and on the human body outnumber human cells within the body — by as much as 100 to 1.
Furthermore, if film-Freeman were real, he would shed his microbes constantly and indiscriminately. They would slough from his face, they would spray out of his mouth when he talked, they would blast out his nose with every breath, they would waft through the air from his hands. They would leave a “Freeman was here” trail on everything he touched, sat on or went near.
In other words, Freeman — like the rest of us — would carry and disperse his own Pig-Pen–like (to reference another example of forward-thinking, universally themed pop culture) microbe cloud wherever he went and whatever he did.
These critters are essential to us. They help us digest food, regulate hormones and control infections. The right mix of gut microbes prevents or reverses obesity and Type 2 diabetes, and promotes mental health and brain function.
We get out of bed in the morning, function during the day and sleep at night thanks to the microscopic universes we shelter.
Scientists are still working out how many species comprise the typical human body, but similar arrangements of varying complexity repeat in every animal and plant on the planet.
Identical twins contain more species in common with each other than with the rest of us. However, families with pet dogs also have more in common with each other, microbially speaking, than with dogless families. Microbe communities separate people who live or work on farms from city dwellers, and — for that matter — each city has its own, unique microbial signature.
Genetics, immunity, diet and environment combine to customize our microbiomes. The microbial mix might change over time, but overall, it is unique to each person, and reflects our gender, age, lifestyle, occupation and even geography.
A person’s microbiome is so individual, its signature might be used to track and identify you. In one experiment, scientists measured the airborne bacteria surrounding volunteers in a sanitized chamber and identified the volunteers by their microbial clouds.
Elsewhere, forensics researchers collected microbial samples from a house where a robbery had been staged, eliminated the species left by the house’s legitimate residents — including a cat — and accurately profiled the “thieves.”
Clearly, any modern remake of Gattaca would need to up its microbial ante to account for our non-human tattletales.
However, if you ever see the cop show CSI identify the bad guy by his microbial cloud — remember, you read it here first.
