A 10-second kiss can transfer as many as 80 million bacteria.
Dutch scientists monitored the kissing behaviour of 21 couples and found some interesting results: that the mouth is home to more than 700 different types of bacteria, that some bacteria are exchanged more easily than others, and that those who kiss nine times a day are most likely to share salivary bugs.
The 10-second kiss experiment
21 couples had their tongues swabbed and saliva collected, both before and after a 10-second kiss.
One member of the couple then drank a probiotic drink, containing an easily identifiable mixture of bugs.
On the couple's second kiss, scientists were able to detect the volume of bacteria transferred to the other partner - on average 80 million bacteria in a single 10-second kiss.
If you want to find out what kind of bacterial kisser you are, and where you rate on the ‘Kiss-o-meter’ scale, head to Micropia in Amsterdam (the world's first museum of microbes) and get a readout of the micro-organisms you’ve exchanged!
Lovely.
