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Plasma Device Kills Bacteria On Skin In Seconds
Ponca City, We love you writes "In medicine, plasma, the fourth state of matter, is already used for sterilizing surgical instruments; plasma works at the atomic level and is able to reach all surfaces, even the interior of hollow needle ends. Now the BBC reports that researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have demonstrated a plasma device that can rid hands, feet, or even underarms of bacteria, including the hospital superbug MRSA, by creating cold atmospheric plasma that produces a cocktail of chemicals that kills bacteria but is harmless to skin. 'The plasma produces a series of over 200 chemical reactions that involve the oxygen and nitrogen in air plus water vapor — there is a whole concoction of chemical species that can be lethal to bacteria,' says Gregor Morfill. 'It's actually similar to what our own immune system does.' The team says that an exposure to the plasma of only about 12 seconds reduces the incidence of bacteria, viruses, and fungi on hands by a factor of a million — a number that stands in sharp contrast to the several minutes hospital staff can take to wash using traditional soap and water. Morfill says that the approach can be used to kill the bacteria that lead to everything from gum disease to body odor and that the prototype is scalable to any size and can be produced in any shape."
Do you remember the article on /. about how excessive cleanliness isn't all that good for you? Yeah...
There was a scene on Babylon 5 where Sheridan and Garibaldi are killing time in a public restroom waiting for someone to leave (yeah, a Sci-Fi show that admits people go to the bathroom!), and Sheridan is shown "washing" his hands under what appears to be a disinfecting device...
Funny how you can often find references in fiction to things that later become reality...
http://marsandmore.com - Posters of space, spacecraft, and astronomy.
The same thing that happens to them when you wash with antibacterial soap.
Never. There is a difference between removing the easy bugs, and complete annihilation of all bacteria it come into contact with. Its like saying the if we had enough super novas humans would become resistant to them.
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In order to grow resistance, you have to leave a few alive and they have to have been left alive due in some part to something in their makeup causing them to be less vulnerable to the 'weapon'.
In other words, something that lived only because it was never touched isn't going to evolve into the superbug.
This eradicates the germs, they aren't being poisoned or having their chemical processes blocked (which is what most antibiotics do), it's ripping the germs apart at the atomic level. You don't develop a resistance to that.
A plasma bathtub would be good but what *I* really want is a plasma TOOTHBRUSH...
That's just coincidental. Besides there were FIVE elements; Fire, water, earth, air and orange haired Ukrainian chick.
If it's germ free and not large enough to be visible, does it matter?
It does if you're a surgeon. There's something called the foreign body response, and we've seen it happen even with particles of the STERILE talc they line some surgical gloves with to make them easier to put on. Problems aren't only caused by bacteria. Depending on the person's immune response, virtually anything can cause a life-threatening reaction to normally "inert" things like nylon suture or titanium rods/sutures. Things like dirt and human hair are more likely to provoke a reaction.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That's just coincidental. Besides there were FIVE elements; Fire, water, earth, air and orange haired Ukrainian chick.
Everyone knows that the fifth element is Heart and is represented by a South American with a monkey. Source
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Your first sentence is true, the second is false. Position _can_ be a genetic advantage. "Something that lived only because it was never touched" happens all the time in biology, where the positional behaviour can be driven by genetics.
Birds avoid high altitude, herds don't generally jump off cliffs, etc. The same happens on a more primitive level, too. People think about genetics and think it's like a human arms race or something, but all natural selection needs is surviving members of a species and it will encode _whatever_ information made them survive. Please remember, we're not talking about single instances of plasma sterilization processes, but basically waiting for a mutation to come along that happens to encode the information which in turn makes a significant contribution to the survival of the bacteria. It might not happen often, but if it happens a few times, then that strain will spread.
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The same thing that happens to them when you wash with antibacterial soap.
One of the most overrated products in the world. Everyone thinks they're getting "anti-bacterial" protection.
If you want "clean hands" while washing with antibacterial soap, make sure you do like we surgeons and wash each hand for 15 minutes. Even then you'll have critters living in your sweat glands... but your bacterial count will be very very low. For the regular "less time than it takes to sing the the birthday song" hand washing, anti-bacterial soap offers virtually no advantage over regular soap.
Now hands up who spends 30 mins washing their hands every time they touch something.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Rachael Ray?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Ninety seconds? Look at who thinks he's a bigshot, Mr. "I'm not a minute-man anymore". Now to click "post anonymously" to protect myself from embarrassment.
And four compass directions: North, South, East, and West. The bible mentions the four corners of the (flat, square) Earth too. All these references to four! Before you know it, your post will get modded to Score: 4, Interesting.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
They'll never catch on because the LCD's are brighter.
Its about time we have a decent solution instead of 15 mins of washing, where are the scientists on this one, 15 mins * few times a day * 1000000 surgens at their salary levels = billions of dollars wasted time.
There's a problem with your accounting: you're forgetting to offset this by the cost of millions of infected patients staying longer at the hospital, the antibiotics used, and the inevitable fatalities.
The standard infection rate for most wounds is around 10% in nature. Aseptic procedure (hand washing, sterile equipment, etc) has brought this down to under 1%. So tack on a week or so in the hospital (plus the fatalities) for 9% of all surgeries performed in the world, then compare it to hand washing.
Not to mention the ethical side. We wash our hands because it's part of our "do no harm" credo.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.