Trying to Help

[Tiggles]

There's a catch: You don't just have to be healthy. You have to be really healthy. OpenBiome's donation procedure may be as easy as your standard bowel movement, but the selection process makes giving blood look like a walk in the park.

"It's harder to become a donor than it is to get into MIT," joked co-founder Mark Smith (who would know, as he got his PhD in microbiology there). Of the 1,000 or so potential donors who've expressed interest on his Web site over the past two years, only about 4 percent have passed the extensive medical questioning and stool testing.

Scientists know that the gut microbiomes of people with obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, and even autism are different from those without.

90% of the server disqualified, Most disqualified twice.