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Keyboards are Havens for Super Bugs
Techguy666 writes "Gee, this is a suprise. Researchers have found that keyboards harbor bacteria and super-germs. This is particularly interesting this time because this research noted that there is a lot of computer use in hospitals and they're finding it really difficult to sterilize them."
The clever golgafrinchans who stayed behind were wiped out by a disease caught from an unsanitary telephone. Does this study suggest we're on a similar path (unless we begin training keyboard sanitizers) or is it possible they are helping keep out immune systems regularly tested by the evils which lurk beneath the h, j, k and l keys.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Perhaps using a keyboard you can clean the "normal" way would help:& lastcatid=119&step=4
http://www.icintracom.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=4564
Now don't say that they couldn't have thought of it too (I mean that, don't say it).
I'm far too scared to type.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
http://fingerworks.com/
I have one, you can clean the entire surface with windex or lysol. It uses E-field sensing so does not have the drawbacks of membrane keyboards and in fact has many advantages over regular keyboards.
http://notanumber.net/
...research noted that there is a lot of computer use in hospitals...
I wonder how much grant money they got for that one.
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They could put a plastic cover over the keyboard, with molds for each of hte keys, and spray/wipe that plastic cover with bleach every now and then.
By saying "keyboards harbor bacteria and super-germs" in the present tense, "harbor" means that keyboards right now contain super-germs. That is a crock, and a gross mis-characterization of what the study found. In the study, they _innoculated_ keyboards with "super germs", then found how long the germs could live. So the headline ought to read more like "bacteria and super-germs can survive on keyboards for 24 hours or more". Rob---
About the word "if": If bullfrogs had wings, they wouldn't bounce around on their little green butts.
This is the most ridiculous piece of non-news I've seen in a while. This so-called 'researcher', Dr. Gary Noskins, needs to research Google for some sealed keyboards.
These keyboards have been in use for quite a while...durable, washable, and yes, they can be sterilized.
Links here and here just for starters.
Mabye I should mail Dr.Noskin my findings...mabye I can publish a study of my own.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Nice surface for bugs, grease and moisture hangs around for ages.
Wood is what you need. Dries out the bugs in no time at all.
I've seen wooden keyboards but they are horrendously expensive. Sigh.
The motto is: don't share your keyboard, and when you go to a cybercafe, wash your hands afterwards, and don't pick your nose.
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I work in a research lab, and the way we clean keyboards is by using compressed air to blow out the dust and dirt, then spraying them with 70% ethanol to remove organics. After the ethanol, they airdry pretty quick, and at the very least, we *think* they're clean. :)
Is a more lightweight, disposable version of those plastic keyboard covers. It would be a membrane thin and flexible enough that it wouldn't interfere with your typing, but which could be thrown out at the end of the day. It would also, conveniently, protect your keyboard from wayward food particles and corrosive finger oils.
I can only assume that if making such a thing were easy it would have been done by now.
I don't know about you, but I'd get my daily dose of bacteria from my keyboard and keep my immune system up and ready to fight off.
I bet all that "protein" that lands on the keyboards of many of us slashdotters are helping those strains out, don't you think?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Only type with one hand, half the germs, twice the fun.
No smoking sigs indoors.
According to the study, from researchers at the University of Arizona, phones have up to 25,127 germs per square inch, keyboards 3,295 per square inch and computer mice 1,676 per square inch.
source here
fuvoo: watch something
Take it apart and clean it every six months or so.
Unscrew what can be unscrewed, and lever the keys off with a screwdriver. Clean the under-key area as well as everywhere else with some window cleaner (or whatever solvent you have around) and clean the keys one-by-one in warm, soapy water. Then let everything dry (a hair dryer set on a cool setting can speed things up with the main part of the keyboard) and put everything back together again.
By the way, if you're unable to put together a keyboard layout from memory, I suggest taking a couple of quick pictures of your keyboard with a digital camera - at least that way you won't be left wondering which key goes where.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You could always clean it in the dishwasher...
Project this onto an untreated wooden surface, you have zero bugs and nothing to clean:
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=118539
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HA! Just watch me! I'll pour any damn liquid on there I want! There, doone! Anmd itttttttttttttttt sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssstuiuiuil ll wwwwrrks perrdfgdfgctttttttttttttttttttttttlllyy!@@@#@@@
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
we did it all the time in the microbiology lab.
we had "water resistant" keyboards so simply slipping one in a large ziplock and then ploping it in the autoclave would do the trick in 60 minutes.
Some brands did not survive the 250 degrees temperature peak and hold, but others did, and the slow pressure increase with the sudden pressure drop kills ANY bug. I dont care how "super" the pathogen is, an autoclave will kill it.
funny part is that keyboards do not last past 5 runs in the device. something about all that heat does bad things to the plastic. but Cherry keyboards were able to survive at least 3 runs.
and yes, we tested it. No bugs after wiping with a sterile swab and trying to incubate it for 48 hours.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is actually what I believe. There's various studies out there that suggest that growing up in a more rural environment will tend to produce less allergenic and breathing problems in later life. The belief is that the constant exposure to dust, seeds, animal dander and hair, etc. that is more common in a rural setting will actually teach the body to not treat these (relatively) harmless materials as hazardous and trigger allergenic or asthmatic responses.
The same could be said of bacteria and such. We're now beginning to realize that treating every infection or virus (say a cold) with antibiotics will in fact, over time, make the bug more resistant to the drugs. A lot of people belive this is why the so called flesh-eating disease is so resistant to anti-biotics. Its been exposed to them all before.
Remember folks, our parents and grandparents didn't have $brandName anti-bacterial wipes to clean up after cutting raw chicken, and they didn't die from salmonella either. Simple precautions such as washing your hands with soap (don't spend extra on the anti-bacterial crap) regularaly. Don't rub your eyes or pick your nose after being in contact with questionable objects.
Simple hygene can actually prevent a surprising number of infections.
I just tried your suggestion, and now my laptop won't boot up. Please advise.
I wasn't picking it, I was SCRATCHING it...
At my first job there seemed to be an unusually large number of people with warts (and lots of them) on their hands. At least five people in a company of less than 25. Surprise surprise: I started getting warts on my hands within 18 months. Warts are of course caused by a virus.
I ended up with about 30 of them. It took more than a year of nasty chemicals and liquid N2 treatment by a dermitologist before my immune system finally kicked and the warts went away. He seemed to think that they were particularly virulent and hardy. I strongly suspect I was infected from keyboards. They have to be the dirtiest nastiest things in an office. I'm glad I work from home these days and only sit down at other people's computers via RDP/VNC/pcAnywhere/WebEx.
Malc
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
It's still wet. Put it in the clothes dryer for a cycle or two, and you should be all set. Good luck!
I have a "virtually indestructible" keyboard. It's rollable, light blue rubber, water proof, and if it ever gets dirty (spilled soup, etc) I can chuck the whole thing in the sink and scrub it. No nooks/crannies, just 101 waterproof keys.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
About 25 years ago I was the Sysadmn + Chief Cook and Bottle washer for a system in a Pathology Lab. It took real time data from all of the medical equipment that the lab used to test your blood. The lab in a hospital is where the sickest parts of the sickest people are brought to. The Doctor who ran the lab forced my company to by a second set of tools and software that never left the lab. I washed the hell out of my hands everytime I left that place. The rule we used was, once it went into the lab, it never came out except as medical waste to be burned or what ever they did with that stuff.
73 49 111 01001001
Yup. I once worked in a "historical" building that was infested with roaches.
One of them laid an egg sac in the keys, and the next morning when I started to type, dozens of baby roaches boiled out of the keyboard.
I threw that one out the window.
The problem is the environment, not the items in it. Hospitals unfortunately house sick patients with multiply-drug-resistant infections. The antibiotics flow like a mighty river... only the toughest bugs survive (and survive they do!).
There was a recent study (can't recall the journal it was in) where they cultured doctors' neckties... they were able to culture all sorts of nasty, drug-resistant organisms.
I am a physician, and I never wear a tie to work (I won't work somewhere where they force ER docs to wear ties)... I only wear scrubs, and get a new set every day... the old ones get washed before they're worn again. I also wash my hands a hundred times a day, and even clean my stethosope with alcohol (admittedly, brief exposure to alcohol doesn't really sterilize anything... but I feel better doing it... how's that for being dogmatic?).
Infection spread is a reality in the hospital. You try to prevent it, but it happens, and off of ANY surface, not just keyboards. Unfortunately, these bugs are out in the community as well... most of the MRSA I see walks right in the front door, often in young people who have never spent a day in the hospital.
And if you're one of those folks who always insists on some antibiotics to "knock out this cold," then you're contributing to this problem.
Don't get mad at me when I refuse to prescibe antibiotics for your viral illness. This is going to sound patronizing, but it's actually for your own good, and helps keep the drugs effective for when you really need them.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Jokes aside, one of my friends had a bucket of water poured onto his Dell laptop last summer (the result of a badly-aimed pratical joke). We thought it was totally screwed, so wiped it down and basically took everything that was semi-user-servicable out (battery, drive bays, pc cards, memory). After it sat for a few hours and dryed up, it was able to boot and has been working normally since.
It should be noted that it's not the water that kills devices, it's the water shorting out contacts that kills it. As long as you don't try to run it while it's on, it should survive. His was actually on when it happened, and turned off immediately, so I guess that part was just luck that it didn't fry anything.
Speak before you think
I don't think there's much that can survive being blasted by steam from a boiling ho.