As odinsravien (aka raven) said, it could be chemical. some kind of soap. But most dish washing products are surfactant based rather than soap. Is your water pretty hard (alot of Calcium and Magnesium)?

Sorry willy - you again offer nothing of substance. Do you know nothing in the way of microbiology? i anticipate you don't so let me help you. Food microbiology addresses specific pathogens rather than numbers (some foods carry milions of bacteria per gram) and such pathogens are well characterized ...

Good point - and not all current residents of an ecosystem can be interpreted to have been here forever. I'll add that zebra mussel is not necssarily a problem. In the Great Lakes, it's been credited with reduction of particulate pollution and subsequent increase in fish populations. On the othersid...

Good job Sarah. It couldn't have been Proteus spp.. Red butt is consistent with Glucose fermentation - characteristic of enterics. Was it Shewanella (formerly Pseudomonas) putrefaciens? A common problem of most ID excercises is that they don't ask students to run controls - that would have helped wi...

Said technically unsophistocated - not unintelligent. Seems like a long shot to redirect an interest but good luck.

A technically unsophistocated audience - you probably should look for emotional appeal in name or image.

I see michi. I just don't see the etiology. This is on dirty dish - so it's not obvious that it can effect pathogenicity. We're exposed the potential pathogens all the time but they have to reach us in a manner that can affect us. Unless this colony/clot of stuff leaps off the dish in some manner or...

Who is your audience - what demographic?

I'm with Darby, hairs certainly are sensory organs - and there are lots of data to that point in other species. That doesn't mean the silly article your mother gave you has any substance - and it's not obvious that long unwashed hair would have a better sensory fuction than short hair that, as in ot...

Try a glyphosphate like Roundup, then replant. Odin makes a good point - drop everything and do it his way.

Maybe the previous owner was using specific flower plantings to discourage insects.

This is a scientific forum - so suggest folks avoid the politically-correct responses including calls of racism. The question should be why the original poster thinks the statement to be true - and an unreferenced subjective discussion from 1880 is not evidence.

I think the options identified speak to etiology rather than next test. Tho' there are insulin assays, wouldn't the likely next test be glucose tlerance test?