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Keyboards Are Disgusting
fredr1k writes "
A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat. More specific it contained 33000 bacteria per square centimeter, compared to 130 on a ordinary toilet seat. The tests also showed occurrence of up to 3100 fungi per square centimeter." Also note that unless you read Swedish, you still have plausible deniability when asked to windex yours.
That's funny, it doesn't taste like McDonalds
My work here is dung.
so who's been wiping their ass with my keyboard?!
Just wait until everyone puts spittle everywhere from talking to computers.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Quick'n'dirty translation:
###
Recent research shows your keyboard is more dirty than a toilet seat
(2006-01-18 09:20) Do you have some dirt between the keys on your keyboard? Spending a few bucks on a new keyboard might be a good idea. The latest issue of Pc för Alla shows that a keyboard can be a major source for contamination.
By Fredrik Agren
A keyboard holds about 33.000 bacteria per square centimeter - 265 times more than a toilet seat.
The computer magazine PC För Alla has examined what exactly is hiding on a keyboard. The task was assigned to Pegasus Lab, which discovered that every square centimeter contained 3.100 fungees.
Not surprisingly, Enter and Space Bar are the most filthy, as they are the keys we use more frequently.
There are many ways to keep your keyboard clean, but those afraid of catching the flu can follow a simple advice from Smittskyddinstitutets Kerstin Mannerquist:
- Wash your hands when you're done with the computer, she says to PC För Alla.
###
Anyway, remember the findings of Mythbusters?
In the episode Chinese Invasion Alarm episode, while busting the 5 second rule myth, they discovered that the toilet seat is one of the cleanest spots in your house.
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
The parts that touch the toilet seat are mostly shielded from bacteria by two layers of cloth.
Fingers, on the other hand, frequently stray to the places where bacteria flourish.
I've been carefully cultivating the bacteria on my keyboard for years! They've just started on communication. I'm hoping to have them up to written language in the next year. Then, we'll start on logic. With any luck, I should have my own civilization of microscopic coding assistants by 2011!
People often make this comparison: "XXX is dirtier than a toilet seat!"
Very bad comparison. Toilet seats are generally disinfected quite often, so should in fact be pretty clean. Keyboards are not disinfected.
Many things are dirtier than a toilet seat. Especially things that get fingers on them all day long. Engage brain and it all becomes quite obvious.
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
There was a Myth Busters episode testing the '5 second rule'. They found the same oddity, the toilet seat was the cleanest place (according to bacteria counts) in the whole shop.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I use my laptop on my toilet. What does this mean for me ?
Maybe bacteria laden keyboards are a blessing in disguise.
A few weeks ago I was at a party listening in on some cocktail talk between some doctors and health researchers. They were commenting about how some water borne bacteria was being (they think successfully ) experimented with to boost human immunity. This bacteria is cleaned out water by public sanitation systems.
A few weeks before that my local news had a piece about a girl with a peanut allergy who died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich earlier in the day.
The after story commentary mentioned how the number of allergies among teens is on the rise and how some ( only some ) experts were looking at the theory that middle class US life is too clean. Antibacterial this and antibacterial that do not allow young immune systems to get stimulated/strengthened.
I'm not an expert and these things are saw are not hard science.
Just introducing a thought, that as with everything else in life you can have too much of a good thing....even cleanliness.
There should be enough epidemiologic data that we don't have to rely on bogus measures like "number of germs" to try to estimate the risk of catching something from a keyboard. I suspect it is minimal.
I have a bottle of cleaning fluid that that purports to kill 99.something% of bacteria. Does that make me safer? Probably not; instead I'm helping the natural selection process to breed super-bugs that are resistant to antiseptic.
The specious "germ" argument is exactly the same as the one used to compute risk of intrusion by the number of reported exposures in a software system. What matters is infection/intrusion, not exposure. And it *can* be measured, so why bother to measure the bogus quantities?
not surprising. Fungal spores are nearly omni-present in the environment, and bacteria thrive on your skin at all times. Now, given that the keyboard is open to the surrounding air and has plenty of shielded space, yes, spores will accumulate there. But there's a difference between 3,100 fungal spores/sq. cm and having fungus actually growing there. Also, I have to question that number - 3,100 spores is a lot of spores.
Did the article bother listing precisely what bacteria and fungi they found? I wouldn't be surprised if they mostly found bacterial species from the genera of Bacillus and Staphylococcus with a few gram-negative rods thrown in for good measure. Oh, Propionibacterium acnes is probably pretty common as well. With the fungi it's more of a mixed bag, although most would probably fall into the general category of Ascomycetes.
As for catching the flu from your keyboard... Viruses such as Influenza don't survive on dry, non-porous surfaces for very long. Once the viral envelope has dried out, the virus is pretty much inactivated. You stand a better chance of catching the flu from talking to the person in the next cubicle or on the elevator.
As far as I'm concerned, the *world* is filthy, and millions of years of evolution have allowed us to live healthily ( mostly ) in it. It's part of being alive. And the more we're exposed, the stronger we are for it.
I'm not surprised that keyboards are filthy, but frankly, when I was a kid wandering around in creeks hunting crawfish, climbing trees, etc etc I never got sick, and I (almost) never get sick as an adult.
We *need* this exposure. I'm worried for children growing up in sterilized environments today.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Careful with the air compressor. Gentle puffs blow out dust, a blast can wedge dust, crumbs, boogers etc. deep into contacts and other places where they might do more damage than if just left alone. Just speaking from experience here :(
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
Tell you what, I'll lick my keyboard. Who wants to lick their toilet?
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." - Paul Beatty
Otherwise, I don't worry: These are _my_ germs, mostly things on my hands that I've already built up an immunity to or have no way of avoiding even if my kbd was sterile. I won't let others use my kbd, and I really try to avoid using others kbds. A much bigger problem is money and door handles. Lots of people touch them and I could get some new virus/bacterium.
BTW: toilet set tops are often very clean. But less so the undersides where women want men to put their fingers to raise and lower toilet seats! Default=up might be more sanitary.
Over-use of anyibacterials encourages the spread of resistance, and may even lead to conditions such as asthma.
of course, biting monkeys is not to everyone's taste - Konrad Lorenz
Why are people surprised by findings such as this one?
Obviously the toilet seat has less germs. Everyone associates "grossness" with germs in their head. Going to the bathroom is gross, and fecal matter is gross, therefore it must be full of germs and bacteria. Not the case, in fact, quite the opposite.
There are more bacteria on your face, more bacteria on your hands and more bacteria in your mouth than your buttocks in most cases.
Just put in the context of contact with the germ filled world you can see by common sense why this would be true:
Your rear end gets washed and then has very little exposure to germs. Your hands and face are out there all day making contact with all types of bacteria.
So I guess my point is that you can't say keyboards are dirty just because they are more bacteria filled than a toilet seat, because I don't even think a door knob holds up to that standard.
Now common sense would also side with keyboards being rather bacteria filled, but I hardly would consider that comparison to be an indicator.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Actually, what you state has some scientific backing.
:)
I heard it on the news last year that some German (?) scientist recommended eating nose mucous. As he stated, the nose is the only organ of the body that for the most part does not have a self-cleaning mechanism. The purpose of the mucous is believed to be (among other things) the entrapment of bacteria and other undesirables that would otherwise have entered the body.
By picking, we provide the nasal passages with a method of cleaning to provide new mucous and by -- ugh -- eating we introduce the bacteria into our systems that were otherwise trapped, thus allowing our immune systems to learn about it and, more importantly, learn to defeat it.
I actually discussed this a few days later with a friend of mine who's an Emergency Medical Technician and was a medic in the Army Reserves. After hearing the doctor's explanation, he agreed that it all makes sense. The immune system can't practice its self-defense if it doesn't have any targets to destroy.
Personally, I'll take my chances with the keyboard instead.
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