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Human Cheese, anyone?
Fascinating new exhibition created by Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin as part of the Grow Your Own: Life After Nature https://dublin.sciencegallery.com/growyourown/ series on synthetic biology.
https://dublin.sciencegallery.com/growyourown/selfmade
?itok=MsQh9A_p
Bacteria from personalities including artist Olafur Eliasson, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and chef Michael Pollan have been used to make human cheese as part of an exhibition about synthetic biology in Dublin. American scientist Christina Agapakis and Norwegian scent expert Sissel Tolaas collected bacteria from Obrist's nose, Eliasson's tears and Pollan's belly button and used them to make the artisanal dairy products.
"We are presenting a set of cheeses made using bacteria from the human body," Agapakis told Dezeen. "Everybody has a unique and diverse set of bacteria living on their skin that can be amplified using techniques from microbiology and grown directly in milk to form and flavour each cheese."
The project, called Selfmade, features eleven cheeses in total, made from bacterial cultures harvested from the skin of artists, scientists, anthropologists, and cheese makers using sterile cotton swabs that were sent to the donors.
The cheeses each smell, and taste, of the body odour of the donor, Agapakis said.
"It's no surprise that sometimes cheese odours and body odours are similar," she explained. "But when we started working together we were surprised by how not only do cheese and smelly body parts like feet share similar odour molecules but also have similar microbial populations."
"We are presenting a set of cheeses made using bacteria from the human body," Agapakis told Dezeen. "Everybody has a unique and diverse set of bacteria living on their skin that can be amplified using techniques from microbiology and grown directly in milk to form and flavour each cheese."
The project, called Selfmade, features eleven cheeses in total, made from bacterial cultures harvested from the skin of artists, scientists, anthropologists, and cheese makers using sterile cotton swabs that were sent to the donors.
The cheeses each smell, and taste, of the body odour of the donor, Agapakis said.
"It's no surprise that sometimes cheese odours and body odours are similar," she explained. "But when we started working together we were surprised by how not only do cheese and smelly body parts like feet share similar odour molecules but also have similar microbial populations."
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/20/olafur-eliasson-tears-used-to-make-human-cheese/
Cheese made of microbes from cheesemaker Seana Doughty's mouth.
Cheese made from microbiologist Ben Wolfe's toe microbes
more cheese at link
24 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I've heard of toe jam before, but not toe cheese. Now I've made myself even more gaggy. 
People who eat their new born's placenta and for dessert ice cream made from mothers milk.
And here I am all out of Clorox to gargle with. 
but the maggot cheese and *this* entire obscenity must never, ever ... 
