ILLUSTRATION: PAUL RYDING
In Switzerland, there lives a man who collects and catalogues poos. Human poos, specifically. Hundreds of box fresh specimens, posted from all over the world, to be carefully logged in his chilled poo library.
This man’s name is Professor Adrian Egil, a microbiologist at the University of Zurich on a heroic mission to preserve human microbia: the gut bacteria that deal with digestion and all sorts of other important health stuff.
And they do, apparently, need preserving. Due to the rise of antibiotic medicine and increasingly globalised diets – drugs ’n’ KFC, basically – many vital strains of gut microbes across the planet are heading for extinction, with, say the scientists, potentially catastrophic consequences for human health.