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Pillows Dangerous for Your Health

Roland Piquepaille writes "I guess we shouldn't be surprised by the fact that our pillows are miniature zoos containing millions of fungal spores, with some species able to cause diseases and even death. Researchers at the University of Manchester have studied the fungal contamination of our pillows for the first time in seventy years and discovered that these pillows were hot beds of fungal spores. After dissecting both feather and synthetic pillows in regular use between several months and 20 years, they've "identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow -- more than a million spores per pillow."

7 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. And how many spores.... by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And how many spores do I inhale just by walking outside my front door? How many live in the rugs at my place of work? How many may be found in the seats at the movie theater? Millions. Thats why he have an immune system IIRC.

    -d

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    1. Re:And how many spores.... by madprof · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. If this was worth panicking over then why are we not all dying en masse due to the widepread use of pillows across the globe?

  2. Just like the news by pellik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of this comes accross as scare tactics, imo. Fungal spores are very, very small things. So you have several thousand per gram, and a million of em on your pillow. How does this compare to other non-pillow personal objects? Is this unusual? It would have been nice if the reporter commented on data from the negative control such as a pillow nobody sleeps on. Furthermore, what percentage of these million fungi are actually pathogenic?

  3. Re:I prefer to think of it by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even worse, if you remove all the germs, your immune system will stay defenseless. You do need to be in contact with the spores if you want to be able to resist them -- and you will have to resist these sooner or later.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  4. The Curse Of Piquepaille by Y-Crate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was hoping that perhaps the editors had finally broken their unspecified "arraignment" with Roland Piquepaille due to the enormous outcry, but alas, they waited until things cooled-down from his 50 submissions a week, and are now once again accepting anything he submits.

    This time, the only link to his "news" site is the link for his name, but I don't think that will last for long. By his 40th story this time next week we can be assured that a quick paraphrase....er..."overview" will quietly slip in again, and multiply from there.

    To think, I almost became a regular /. reader again.

    The really interesting thing is that if the editors came clean on a lot of things from the outset, it would allay a lot of concerns, instead they give us a wall of silence except when it comes time to ask for subscriptions.

  5. Re:how do we "treat" this problem? by InvalidError · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Break out the aluminium foil.

    Cotton can survive spending an hour at over 100C, fungi and germs cannot. Cover one oven tray with foil, put the second tray at the next lowest position and put your pillows on it. The foil should prevent the cotton from burning due to direct IR exposure.

  6. Re:I prefer to think of it by Jesus_666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which is why it's important that kids play outside, get themselves dirty and come back to a home where it's not SOP to treat every spot with antibacterial spray. The more exposure to germs you get as a child, the stronger your immune system becomes.
    I know people who barely sneezed once during their childhood and who now can catch a cold from the temperature shift when they get out of bed in the morning, while people who spent half of their childhood sick tend to be more robust.

    --
    USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)