You are not, strictly speaking, a single organism — you're a walking ecosystem, home to trillions of bacteria that outnumber your own cells and carry hundreds of times more genes than your own genome. We explore what this “microbiome” does for digestion, immunity and even mood, how it gets established, and why the science here is exciting, fast-moving, and easy to overhype.

You'll come away understanding where these microbes live and what they do, how antibiotics and diet reshape them, what the gut-brain link really amounts to, and how to tell a solid finding from a marketing claim.

Talking Science is sponsored by Kinsoft. Visit www.kinsoft.com.au

Further reading: the Human Microbiome Project (NIH); Nature microbiome collection; CSIRO gut health reso ...