Health & Medicine
Here's Why Your Phone Is So Dirty
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Jan 17, 2015 08:39 PM EST
Let's face it. We all pick up a ton of germs handling this and that throughout the day, and of course, everything we touch latches on to many of these germs as well.
Now, scientists at the University of Surrey are examining just how dirty our phones get by examining them in petri dishes and watching the bacteria simply flourish over time.
Besides the dirt and grunge that we've slid onto our phones throughout the day, there could also be some troublesome bacteria in the mix. Staphylococcus aureus, which can result in a skin rash, respiratory disease and even food poisoning, in more severe cases, has been found on some founds, in a new study.
Many of the phones involved in the project had the most dangerous bacteria located on the ‘home' button of the device. Fortunately, however, most of the bacteria was found to be harmless.
"As part of a course called Practical and Biomedical Bacteriology, an undergraduate module that I run, I get the students to imprint their mobile phones onto bacteriological growth Petri dishes so that we might determine what they might carry," said Dr. Simon Park, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology, via Dangerous Minds. "It's unusual but very effective way of engaging our students with the often overlooked microbiology of everyday life."
For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
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First Posted: Jan 17, 2015 08:39 PM EST
Let's face it. We all pick up a ton of germs handling this and that throughout the day, and of course, everything we touch latches on to many of these germs as well.
Now, scientists at the University of Surrey are examining just how dirty our phones get by examining them in petri dishes and watching the bacteria simply flourish over time.
Besides the dirt and grunge that we've slid onto our phones throughout the day, there could also be some troublesome bacteria in the mix. Staphylococcus aureus, which can result in a skin rash, respiratory disease and even food poisoning, in more severe cases, has been found on some founds, in a new study.
Many of the phones involved in the project had the most dangerous bacteria located on the ‘home' button of the device. Fortunately, however, most of the bacteria was found to be harmless.
"As part of a course called Practical and Biomedical Bacteriology, an undergraduate module that I run, I get the students to imprint their mobile phones onto bacteriological growth Petri dishes so that we might determine what they might carry," said Dr. Simon Park, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology, via Dangerous Minds. "It's unusual but very effective way of engaging our students with the often overlooked microbiology of everyday life."
For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone