"I'm not sure what's going on at a microbial level, but from the sniffer test, I can say it's working, " she says.

WSJ: It Ain't Rocket Science, but Sock-Making Comes Close

Some 1, 400 boxes of original paperwork were put into storage but an unknown number of papers have suffered a microbial infection, meaning they cannot be handled without wearing gloves and masks.

BBC: Asil Nadir

"We need to learn a good deal more about the mechanism by which a microbial population changed by gastric bypass exerts its effects, " said study author Dr Lee Kaplan, an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

BBC: Bacteria find 'key to treating obesity without surgery'