Bacterial radios  are one thing but cheese made from bacteria found in armpits, toes and other such unsavoury body parts is another. Working together as part of Synthetic Aesthetics, an inter-disciplinary research project fomenting collaboration between art and science, artist and scent researcher Christina Agapakis and synthetic biologist Sissel Tolaas realised that ecosystems in the body were often similar to microbes in cheese.

They put their hypothesis to the test by taking swabs from specific corporeal regions of 8 different people and employed traditional cheese-making methods to cultivate skin bacteria into cheese. Each cheese had its own unique scent and the plan for the future is to be able to create custom-made cheese as well as continue exploring the links between bodies and food.

The idea might make you recoil in disgust but something the pair are keen to highlight is the context of scent, in other words the smell of cheese emanating from a deli may make you salivate but the same smell oozing out of another person is more likely to make you vomit.

We’re looking forward to seeing more from synthetic biology in the future but to see similarly fascinating scientific endeavours, check out our Dark Tech and Meta Materials trends.