For decades, scientists repeated as established fact that bacteria in the human body outnumber human cells ten to one — a 2016 study by the Weizmann Institute of Science reviewed the original source a

For a long time, one number did a great deal of work in popular accounts of human biology. Ten to one: for every cell that was genetically yours, ten bacteria were along for the ride, making you, in some loosely held sense, more microbial than human. The figure appeared in university textbooks, in science journalism, […]