--- title: How the Dust in Your Home Can Tell People Your Gender description: A new study shows that the bacteria and fungi in homes can show where the home is located, and some information about who lives there. canonical: https://time.com/4013307/dusty-study-gender-house/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-27T18:15:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T10:29:55.889Z article:section: Science og:title: How the Dust in Your Home Can Tell People Your Gender og:description: It can also show the location of your house and whether or not you have pets. og:url: https://time.com/4013307/dusty-study-gender-house/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfcaac1d3fd0beef7/69886127428a9e276bcced4b/gettyimages-510432887.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 510432887 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How the Dust in Your Home Can Tell People Your Gender twitter:description: It can also show the location of your house and whether or not you have pets. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfcaac1d3fd0beef7/69886127428a9e276bcced4b/gettyimages-510432887.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How the Dust in Your Home Can Tell People Your Gender  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 27, 2015 6:15 PM UTC  Sweeping dusty room Sweeping dusty roomPaul Düsterhöft / Eye—;Getty Images/EyeEm  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 27, 2015 6:15 PM UTC It turns out that dust collecting in the corners of your house is more than just a nuisance: it can also contain valuable information about you. According to [a new study](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1814/20151139) published in the journal _Proceedings of the Royal Society B,_ dust in people’s homes contains bacteria and fungi that can point to the geographic location of the house, the gender makeup of the people who live there, and whether or not they have pets. Of those, “Geography is the best predictor of fungi in your home,” Noah Fierer, an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at CU-Boulder and a co-author of the study, [said in a press release](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub%5Freleases/2015-08/uoca-hsm082515.php).”The reason is that most fungi blow in from outdoors via soil and leaves.” But researchers were also able to use the dust samples from the 1,200 homes around the U.S. they studied to figure out whether the home occupants had dogs or cats, and whether only men lived in the home or if women lived there as well. “If you want to change what you breathe inside your house, you would either have to move very far away or change the people and the pets you live with,” Albert Barbarán, a graduate researcher in CU-Boulder’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and lead author of the study, said in the release. On average, each home contained more than 5,000 different species of bacteria and about 2,000 species of fungi. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4013307/dusty-study-gender-house/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4013307/dusty-study-gender-house/"},"headline":"How the Dust in Your Home Can Tell People Your Gender","datePublished":"2015-08-27T18:15:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T10:29:55.889Z","description":"Dust can also show the geographic location of your house and whether or not you have pets.","url":"https://time.com/4013307/dusty-study-gender-house/","keywords":["Bacteria"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfcaac1d3fd0beef7/69886127428a9e276bcced4b/gettyimages-510432887.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfcaac1d3fd0beef7/69886127428a9e276bcced4b/gettyimages-510432887.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"510432887","caption":"510432887","creditText":"Paul Düsterhöft / Eye—;Getty Images/EyeEm","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/bacteria/","name":"Bacteria"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4013307/dusty-study-gender-house/","name":"How the Dust in Your Home Can Tell People Your Gender"}}]}] ```