This is such a clickbait. Everybody reading that title imagines that they tested spreading of some contagious disease (and put it in the same category as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256831) - but what was tested was how the bacteria was moved by the air in the subway. They tried a common soil bacteria that they believed was harmless (and which wikipedia says "is thought to be a normal gut commensal in humans").
"""And while the people who conducted these experiments did so under the belief that the bacterial species they used were harmless, it has since been revealed that they can cause health problems."""
The bacteria used there was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_subtilis "This species is commonly found in the upper layers of the soil and B. subtilis is thought to be a normal gut commensal in humans."
We live surrounded by bacteria, an probably often by Bacillus subtilis - because it is a common bacteria found in soil.
This is such a clickbait. Everybody reading that title imagines that they tested spreading of some contagious disease (and put it in the same category as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256831) - but what was tested was how the bacteria was moved by the air in the subway. They tried a common soil bacteria that they believed was harmless (and which wikipedia says "is thought to be a normal gut commensal in humans").
"""And while the people who conducted these experiments did so under the belief that the bacterial species they used were harmless, it has since been revealed that they can cause health problems."""
This is such a weasel language, everything can cause health problems (is water harmless? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication).
The bacteria used there was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_subtilis "This species is commonly found in the upper layers of the soil and B. subtilis is thought to be a normal gut commensal in humans."
We live surrounded by bacteria, an probably often by Bacillus subtilis - because it is a common bacteria found in soil.