Why you’re not ninety percent bacteria

The aha, in writing

1. The old ten-to-one claim came from a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate, not a careful count.
2. A recount for a standard adult found about thirty-eight trillion bacteria and thirty trillion human cells, roughly one to one, and about ninety percent of those human cells are blood cells.
3. All those bacteria weigh only about two hundred grams, and each trip to the toilet removes a quarter to a third of the ones in your colon.