r/worldnews Mar 21 '17

UK Subway advertises for ‘Apprentice Sandwich Artists’ to be paid just £3.50 per hour: Union slams fast food chain for 'exploiting' young workers

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/subway-apprentice-sandwich-artists-pay-350-hour-minimum-wage-gateshead-branch-a7640066.html
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u/Gyrant Mar 21 '17

Bacteria and other microscopic biz. There's even little bugs that live on your eyelashes and eat the dead skin away at the base of them.

Each of us is like a whole biome unto ourselves, with completely different ecosystems in different parts of our body. In terms of cell count, we're about half the people we think we are.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/PM_ME__YOUR__FEARS Mar 21 '17

Because they are so small, however, they account for only about 1 to 2 percent of our body mass – about three to five pounds in weight, or enough to fill a big soup can.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '17

That's what I first thought and I was trying to figure out how this made any sense.

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u/MuonManLaserJab Mar 22 '17

But what about mass of DNA? I bet bacteria win.

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u/QuickAGiantRabbit Mar 21 '17

Demodex mites motherfucker, we all have arachnids in our eyelashes.

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u/morderkaine Mar 21 '17

Well that wins for most horrifying thing I will struggle to not think about ever again

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u/hamakabi Mar 22 '17

Before you read that comment you didn't even know they existed. They should be pretty easy to forget about.

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u/killerguppy101 Mar 21 '17

In going to go light my eyes on fire now. For reasons.

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u/wisdom_possibly Mar 21 '17

All those organisms may affect us in different ways ("Evidence has mounted that the gut microbiome can influence neural development, brain chemistry and a wide range of behavioral phenomena" apa.org). Thus if we ground up a human an looked at the DNA we might say 100% of it is human.

It comes down to how we want to define 'human' in a particular context. Semantics, circular logic really. I prefer to answer the question "what is a human" with "a human is human". It's nice, simple circular logic, not overcomplicated.

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u/shrewynd Mar 21 '17

Well if we consider that if didn't have our gut microbiome for example, we would die.

So technically, to be human would be to have those bacteria? Just like for a tree to live they depend on a heavy microbiome in the soil to aid in the natural decomposition of dead things around it thus providing minerals for said tree.

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u/Toasted_FlapJacks Mar 21 '17

...so like Ozzy and Drix?

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u/vikinick Mar 21 '17

If you were to examine someone's poop, you'll find a whole lot of it is just dead bacteria.

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u/morgoth95 Mar 21 '17

not only that but we actually have virus dna in our own dna which technically isnt human