Babies delivered by Cesarean section lack many microbes that are routinely transferred from mother to child.
These clarifiers remove microbes that are washed off the rocks by the flow of wastewater.
But there seems little doubt that antibiotic use will need to be cut back sharply before it produces even more microbes that are resistant to modern medicines.
With the development of nanotechnology, the building of machines out of individual atoms and molecules, Mr. Joy worries about artificial microbes that are better than their biological counterparts.
Persons with AIDS may be unable to overcome infections by a variety of microbes that are easily disposed of by persons uninfected with HIV.
By comparing the genes and fossils on different branches of the tree of life, scientists can reconstruct the history that produced the animals, plants and microbes that are still evolving today.
The spider, a Chilean rose tarantula, is just one organism on a long list of animals, plants and microbes that are unwanted in New Zealand, a country serious about its biosecurity.
He helped discover how some bacteria used microscopic pumps to purge themselves of antibiotics, and he unravelled a paradox involving biofilms: groupings of microbes that are often deadly and impervious to medication, even though in isolation they are easily eradicated.
They suggest that, rather than merely taking a roll call of the microbes that are involved with different states of health and disease, we ought to remember their genetic dynamism, too.
"I would not be surprised if samples of ocean plastics contained microbes that are happily growing on this material and could be isolated in the same manner," he said.
It is humbling that, despite a decade of work, scientists are barely any closer to identifying microbes that are clearly linked to obesity, which has received more attention from microbiome researchers than any other.
