For Kathleen Schmidt, 18, the biggest challenge in her research was finding people willing to swab their belly buttons. Her tiny town of Ashley, N.D., has only 699 residents—and most weren't too willing to bare their bellies for science.
 "I got a lot of no's," the teen recalls. "Even my sister wouldn't let me swab hers." But with a lot of begging, the senior at Ashley Public School got her volunteers. She used swabs of their belly buttons to create a who's who of the microbes living on — and in — our navels.
  The teen's project has only made her love of microbes stronger. "This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life," she says. "I love it so much." She's already gotten a job for the fall, when she starts college at North Dakota State University in Fargo. She'll be working in a microbiology lab, of course.—Science News for Kids