The Microbiomics Revolution Has Arrived

The age of microbiomics is upon us and with it opportunities for promising new areas of research have arisen that build and expand upon the excitement of the original but add a previously thought unrelated dimension. By combining the study of the microbiome with some random other non-microbiology related thing that people study not only will you gain notoriety as a trailblazing pioneer in the field, but more importantly you will instantly at least double the number of funding agencies to which you can apply for grant money. Confused? Me too a little bit, but to help clarify some I have proposed a few new fields and brief descriptions of possible research focus areas for each. Note that I own any and all intellectual property associated with the name of each field and any valuable discoveries made within them.

As a reminder for those unfamiliar with the terms, the microbiome are the the microorganisms in a particular environment (including the body or a part of the body). Microbiomics is a fast-growing field in which all the microorganisms of a given community (a microbiota) are investigated together.

Sociobiomics© — The study of the relationship between the human microbiome, society, social institutions, and social relationships. Research is primarily concerned with understanding if the microbiome in some way determines or reflects the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings.

Astrolbiomics ™ — The divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects and their correlation with the human microbiome, e.g. How does the microbiome population change with the lunar phases? Are the microbiomes of persons of the same astrological sign more closely related to each other than to persons of other signs? Can changes in microbiome population numbers or diversity be associated with the the positions of the stars relative to the prime vertical within the sublunary body and used to predict if I will ever meet the woman of my dreams, fall in love, and get married?

Ethnobiomics® — The importance and influence of the human microbiome on the division of human beings into races and their origin, distribution, relations, and characteristics.

Anthrobiomics © — The microbiome and its impact on human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture.

Quantumbiomics ® — The microbiome and its applications within quantum mechanics. Examples include, the microbiome as observer in quantum experiments, can a microbe or the microbiome collapse a wavefunction? How many bacteria does it take to “make an observation?” What happens to the cat microbiome when an observer opens the box in Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment? What was their status while the box was still closed? If the cat is neither alive nor dead must its microbiome also exist in the same superposition of states? Given the relative abundance of the cat microbiome compared to cat cells (at least 10X) shouldn’t observations of it, in addition to observations of the cat, be needed prior to collapsing of the wave function to a determinate state of alive or dead for the cat? What does it mean that the microbiome is not observable at the macro level like the cat, but can only be observed by use of specific instrumentation (e.g. microscope).

Cosmobiomics ™ — The study of human and possibly extraterrestial microbiome(s) from just moments after the Big Bang through the eventual end of all things.

Microeconobiomics© — The influence of the human microbiome on the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms.

Macroeconobiomics® — The branch of microbiomics dealing with the role of the human microbiome in influencing the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole rather than individual markets. This includes national, regional, and global economies.