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Mystery #3Tier 2microbes / numbers / skin

How many germs could be sitting on your fingertip right now?

Your fingertip looks clean. It feels smooth, and there is clearly nothing on it. But your skin is quietly carrying passengers, far more of them than you would ever guess. If you could somehow count every germ on one fingertip, what sort of number would you reach?

The view down a microscope: pale colonies of microbes growing on a culture plate, magnified into branching shapes.
Photo: Korinna · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Your guess

What is your best guess for the number of germs on one fingertip?

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