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Self Cleaning Mouse
mikesd81 writes "LEWIS Wire is reporting on a self-cleaning mouse that disables the survival of bacteria with an auto-disinfecting surface. From the article: 'According to a recent survey from the University of Arizona, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat. Despite this, office workers rarely have time to clean their desktops frequently or thoroughly enough to be effective. As a result, the presence of microbes contributes to the spread of pneumonia, the flu, pink eye and strep throat, among other extremely contagious viruses.'"
We just figured out 90% of the mouse's dna, and already it's cleaning itself... very nice !
If you "disinfect" a surface, it's like clear-cutting a rain-forest. You've upset the balance, making a fresh new playground where the really baad and hardy weeds might take hold.
It licks it's own balls?
so how long will that survive on the surface? It'll have to be tough to withstand ordinary wear and tear... the contact points where my fingers hold the mouse on my desktop are already worn smooth and the mouse has only been in use for 6 months... sounds like snake-oil to me especially the nano-particle crap...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Compulsive telephone sanitisers. I never caught a flu from MY mouse.... What are they worried about, computers catching a virus?
the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat Clearly, people are doing something wrong with their desks or with their toilets.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Yes, you touch your mouse often, but it is just a tiny fraction of what you touch so this mouse is just a waste of money. OK, not a big one for a change.
On the other hand, using such surfaces in hospital for example on doorknobs or armrests may really be helpfull.
It is no surprise the average desktop has too many viruses, what do you expect when the average desktop is running windows? But the Fine Article seems to have confused virus with bacteria. Just switch to Linux and everything will be hunky dory.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So are people supposed to wipe their butt with this thing or what? (Just trying to correlate toilet seats, bacteria and an antiseptic mouse.)
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
They help keep the immune system strong. If there's nothing for it to fight off... well... it'll just get lazy. Stay dirty; exercise that immune system!
Face it, you never catch them all. So some survive, that are more resilent against the agent. They breed. And bacteria do that FAST. The resistance gets inherited. And then again. You are actually causing some un-natural selection that way, until you end up with bacteria that are super aggressive and super resistant against your antibac.
Why do you think the most violent, nasty and resistant bacteria stems are found in hospitals?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For the ball-less mice: bacteria can also be killed with a laser beam.
If the average desk harbours 400% more bacteria than the average toilet seat wouldn't it have a helluva lot to do with the relative surface area of each.
Well new nano technology allows us to create surfaces that no bacteria can live on. So you don't have to worry about good OR bad bacteria, and its smart for surfaces that people often touch. Otherwise I agree.
Toilet seats have very few bacteria as they are made of non-porous material. So trying to say they have 400 times the bacteria is not really that outrageous of an amount.
Wow...so many viruses on my desktop. Does Microsoft make that too?
Okay, just to clear this up: the average toilet seat is, believe it or not, one of the most sterile and least bacteria-ridden places you will find anywhere in your household. It is usually a barren plastic surface with little purchase for bacteria or moisture, it is cleaned and disinfected more than most surfaces, and the only real chance it has of catching anything that bacteria feed on is if someone ends up smearing crap on it - I'm really hope that's not the norm. In addition, what is unfortunately likely to end up on the seat is urine, which is totally sterile and would kill rather than feed most bacteria. Anyone who ever cleans their house will have a pretty sterile seat, and there is not much chance that anything you do pick up on the back of your legs is going to be transferred directly to your face by your hand.
Just about the opposite of all the points above can be said about your keyboard and mouse. It should come as absolutely no surprise that these things are riddled with bacteria...
As is your skin. All of it. You are fucking covered in the little guys, and it's rarely a problem. If you're the sort of person who's likely to get sick from a mouse that hasn't been disinfected, your life is too sterile for you to survive easily in the wild. Self-cleaning mice and mobility-scooters for the morbidly obese - they amount to the same thing: people's poor lifestyles causing them to be unfit to survive normally. I understand why people need these things, but if they'd exercised moderation in all things from the start, they wouldn't be in this situation.
Meta will eat itself
I would call spending 1/3 of every day cleaning excessive, unless you are a janitor.
That's nothing. I have a self-cleaning dog. A friend of mine watched my dog clean himself and said, "Man, I wish I could do that."
I told him, "You better pet him first; he might bite."
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
According to a recent survey from the University of Arizona, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat.
There's even more bacteria INSIDE YOU! And no, they're not only "your" bacteria. They are in fact bacteria that you ate, breathed in and so on and so on. They live and breed inside you, and defecate inside you! They also *eat* from whatever is laying around (i.e. YOU).
Shocking? Well it better not be, since they're not going away any time soon. I'm sick of gem-counting revelations and toilet seat comparisons.
I'm proud to say I use a regular dirty mouse and keyboard and I'm still alive and healthy. If someone is concerned he might catch something bad from a computer mouse, he wouldn't be alive to buy this product anyway.
That's besides the fact that most toilet seats tend to be fairly clean. Bacteria just don't do well on cold porcelain; they like warm, wet places with lots of food.
Fnord.
"cleaning" does not kill germs. It pushes them around a bit.
:-)) scrubbing with nasty disinfectants several times a day.
Disinfection does. Which I practically never do anywhere except for the kitchen sink, garbage can and the bathroom/toilet.
Speaking of which, the average publich toilet gets a thorough (?
I would expect it to be cleaner than say my keyboard. I would not want to dip that in Domestos/Bref whatever.
Wash your hands.
Thankyou for your attention.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
The solution is just to move everyone's desk into the restroom.
Seriously: if the current contamination really were a problem, we would all be dead. But we aren't, and why? Because the human body has a immune system. So I bet, such a self-cleaning mouse, or even completely sterile desks deployed everywhere wouldn't have any impact on the infection rates.
Actually, desinfecting too much actually leads to other problems. Current studies suggest that too much hygiene may be a big factor in the recent increases of allergies. Also, fighting too aggressively against any kind of etiologic agents only produces more resistant etiologic agents. A prominent example is the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a Staph.A. strain that developed antibiotic resistance and is responsible for a good share of all nosocomial infections (i.e. infections you get that you get in hospital but are otherwise unrelated to your actual treatment there).
IANAMD (I am not an MD), but I have an education as combat medic in the Austrian Army where infectiology is a huge subject during education.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I'm no biologist, but isn't that just 'upping the ante'?
By making a service no current bug can live on, won't it leave a whole new world for tha one bug that happens to mutate in such a way to be tolerant(considering about divisions bacteria make with the percentage of mutation which is only likelier to increase given adverse conditions that may cripple its DNA). A la current anti-bacterial super-bug problem?
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
>Speaking of which, the average publich toilet gets a thorough (? :-)) scrubbing with nasty disinfectants several times a day.
Blimey, where you do live?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Why doesn't some manufacturer design a mouse and keyboard that you can clean in a dishwasher?
(Also iPods, 'phones, tv remotes and all types of electronic goods in all types of washer. NB patent trolls, if this is original, I claim prior art by publishing here. PS eeuw)
Reduce, reuse, cycle
The problem is, when you mention bacteria to the average person, they think bad things because we've learned that bad bacteria can make us sick. That's why I hate most studies that proclaim the bacteria count is such and such.
Unfortunately, these "studies" are usually trying to convince us to buy an anti-bacterial soap, or as in this case a self cleaning mouse so they play on people's fears and doubts to make them want to buy it, ie... it's just FUD.
You're right. These mice will be the natural selection grounds for oxygen radical resistant bacterial strains, maybe even incoorperating them into their metabolic pathways to produce cheap ATP. Next you will find your printer clogged up with strange pulsating mounds of glee. From there the bug will spread in any electronic device where electric charge creates free radicals, bringing down civilisation as we know it.
Has anyone checked these oxygen-radical producing mice for connections with muslim-radicals?
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!
Interesting product, illiterate article.
Fomites (inanimate objects that can spread disease by holding infective organisms between hosts) can spread organisms, but office equipment, including mice and keyboards, has never been shown to contribute to the spread of serious disease. In a hospital environment, especially in something like an ICU where you have multiple providers working with the same computers, this might be an interesting thing to study. In the office, there's no point. You're at far more danger from shaking hands with your co-workers than you are from using their mouse. Tellingly, neither the author of the study nor the manufacturer quote any actual scientific study showing that an antibacterial mouse makes a difference anywhere. This is a talisman, pure and simple.
Which doesn't stop the writer of the article, who breathlessly refers to "the spread of pneumonia, the flu, pink eye and strep throat, among other extremely contagious viruses." As a physician who is continually explaining the difference between viruses and bacteria, and the difference between diseases caused by transmission of specific organisms (like strep) and general conditions that have hundreds of causes (like pink eye or pneumonia), this sentence made me twitch violently. Suffice it to say that with this single phrase, the author ensured that I would ignore the rest of the article as an obvious waste of time.
Fortunately, the manufacturer of the mouse did better. I love the disclaimer:
And there you have it. Remember, don't ingest the damn thing under ANY circumtances.
And of the other 3%, most of them we couldn't survive without and the primary way they can harm us is by dying. The human lifeform is symbiotic with a whole bunch of bacterial species, which do everything from cleaning your eyeballs to assisting with digestion. The biosphere relies on bacteria to maintain everything from soil conditions to oxygen levels in the atmosphere.
Killing bacteria to stop infections is like chopping off people's hands to stop shootings - before they happen.
So... are you feeling lucky?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
yeah...but i kinda figure if i wash my hands somewhat regularly, then the germies on my keyboard have become *my* germies over time...i don't expect to actually get sick when exposed to 400 or 4000 percent more of the germs i'm exposed to every day -- that my body's used to fighting -- when compared to a single exposure to someone with a novel strain of the flu.
The process isn't that hard, they have been doing stuff like this for years. They inject Anti-bacterial disinfectants into the plastics before they mold them.
They have similar mats in showers, boats, dairy farms http://www.animat.ca/.
I'm suprised they haven't done this before. Inter-office disease spreading via keyboards and such is a HUGE problem, costing billions per year.
Think about it? How many times have you been nailed by a cold going "around" the office?
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I find the best way to clean a keyboard is dump a cup of coffee on it. The replacement is generally spotless! (remind me not to try to disasemble another keyboard--obviously made by aliens)
Wouldn't it be easier to just make a copper mouse? Copper kills germs.
Plus after time your mouse will go from copper color to green, so you'll get 2 styles for the price of 1
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I say we build an arc to carry away these people working on such useless projects. We could probably get rid of a good third of the world if we were to just send off all the hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone (and mouse) sanitizers. Then we could finally live in peace...
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
That must suck for Louisiana.
Resistant, sure. Aggressive, ??
Of course they're aggressive. You just killed their family, and tried to kill them. They're pissed, they're armed, and you gotta sleep sometime.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Mobile phones are generally only used by one person; thus they're only covered with your own bacteria, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to disinfect them.
After all, if you touch the phone to your face, and then wait a while and touch it to your face again, you didn't accomplish anything. The bacteria that were on your face are still on your face; even if you hadn't used the phone they just would have stayed there.
Now, if you had a phone that was shared by large numbers of people, there might be a reason to disinfect it so you didn't spread things, but even then I'm not sure how dirty your face is. Your hands are probably much worse, and people still seem to shake hands without hesitation. Regular handwashing would probably be more effective at preventing the spread of disease than whether your mobile phone is oozing Lysol.
The objects which it makes sense to make self-disinfecting are those which are used by large numbers of people, and are principally touched with their hands. The keyboards and mice of public terminals strike me as a good use, but more than that, I'd like to see the interior door-handles of public restrooms made self-disinfecting. (Or mandate that all restroom doors have to be free-swinging and open outwards, so you could just push them.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I've also swapped out my chair at work with unused matches before
Aren't they kind of uncomfortable to sit on? Besides the obvious fire hazard..
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
Except influenze is caused by a VIRUS, NOT a bacteria. How is this anti-bacterial mouse going to protect against the Flu?
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
"sure, I always wash my hands before taking a piss -- hey, I wouldn't want to get my cock dirty!"
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Actually, counting cells we're not even close to being a majority in our own bodies. Some figures suggest that we have 10 times the amount of microorganisms in our intestines than the number of cells we are made up of "ourselves". For more interesting facts about why the stupid view on bacteria some likes to sell us are way over-simplified: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora (with a lengthy list of references in case you feel like making up your own mind).
Sure there is. That is, unless you never wipe your ass, which is not very probable even on Slashdot.
Then again, I don't worry about my desk. How is my immune system supposed to work if it never gets anything for training? There is a good reason why allergies spread like an epidemic nowadays. Ask old people whether they knew anyone who was allergic, say, 40 years ago.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
If that's really a problem, then a little review might help.
But to address your points seriously, urine is composed of plasma, uric acid, and other elements that your kidneys filter out. It doesn't smell good, but it's not ridden with bacteria. Semen won't produce a good bacterial culture either, and I'd like to think that most people try to avoid cumming all over their toilet seats anyways.
Then it's a pity most toilet seats are made out of plastic or wood.Even on that note, it's really the same. A lot of toilet seats are plastic, but that isn't really hospitable to bacteria either. Most wooden toilets seats are treated, but even if you had some old piece of driftwood with a hole carved in it, it doesn't change the necessity bacteria have to consume nutrients. If you have a constantly warm, steamy bathroom, and you came all over the untreated wooden seat on a regular basis, and the bacteria were able to get everything they need from the protein, then you might have a problem. But, that's hardly the case in a majority of bathrooms.
Fnord.