"We need to learn a good deal more about the mechanism by which a microbial population changed by gastric bypass exerts its effects, " said study author Dr Lee Kaplan, an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

BBC: Bacteria find 'key to treating obesity without surgery'

An environmental remediation team could use qPCR to count the population of specific contaminant degrading microbes, or to assess the genetic biochemical pathways (e.g. microbial cellular machinery) that cause the degradation of environmental contaminants.

FORBES: Guest post written by Aaron Peacock