People often wear masks when they have a cold, and the surfaces in subway cars are cleaned constantly.
Spanning six continents, 32 countries and 54 cities, this synchronized event brought together more than 400 people, who collected about 12,000 samples of DNA, RNA and microbes from surfaces in subways, buses, airports and other well-traveled public meeting spaces.
Their results showed that the trace levels of human DNA left of the surface of the subway can recapitulate the U.S. Census data.
The most bacteria-laden surface was the subway's hanging grips, followed by seats and ticket machine touch screens.
Tubs and shower surfaces are inexpensive subway tile.
We could predict the timing of the Bronx No. 4 subway surfacing periodically beyond the Stadium outfield, in the same way we could gauge train arrivals at our local Manhattan station.
"We had our hypothesis about what's on the surfaces of the subway, which reflects a massive, diverse, busy metropolis, but we really had no idea what we would find," says co-lead author Ebrahim Afshinnekoo, a senior at Macaulay Honors College -Queens who starting working on the project as a Tri-Institutional Computational Biology and Medicine Summer Student in 2013.
Of the known bacteria, the majority (57 percent) found on the surfaces of the subway have never been associated with human disease, whereas about 31percentt represented opportunistic bacteria that might pose health risks for immune-compromised, injured or disease-susceptible populations, researchers report.
Since then, expressways that serve the needs only of car and truck drivers have tended to add to congestion in urban areas and planners today realize that transporation must incorporate a variety of systems like surface rail lines, subways and buses.
