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Scientists Put an End To Smelly Socks
athe!st writes "A new anti-microbial treatment that can make clothing — including smelly socks — permanently germ-free has been developed by US scientists. In a paper published in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, Dr Jason Locklin and his colleagues state that the treatment kills a wide range of dangerous pathogens, including staph, strep, E. coli, pseudomonas and acinetobacter."
Am I the only one who has grown cautious of putting chemicals on my skin, in close contact, for many hours of the day? We'll either end up with a super bug or foot cancer...
Let's see, contribute to the creation of a superbug, or wash my fucking socks? Decisions, decisions...
You have socks just for fucking?
You need to update your talking points. Bedbugs were either in the process or already resistant to DDT in many areas.
Please see:
DDT resistance: once more, with tables and sources
Wax on, wax off baby!
I normally don't post on slashdot, but since this is related to my field (I am a chemist) and there have been a lot of comments about how bad this must be because of the possibility of building resistance, I felt obligated to clarify this after looking into it.
As far as anti-microbial substances work, this is about as simple as it gets. All bacteria have cell membranes consisting of a lipid bilayer - it's basically two layers of negatively-charged water-loving stuff attached to a fatty part in the middle that stays away from water. This treatment uses a polymer that can pass through the cell membrane, with positively-charged bits making it inside the membrane. The positively-charged parts on the polymer attract the negatively-charged parts on the membrane and cause it to come apart enough for the cell to die.
Many other antibiotics are based on small molecules that interrupting some metabolic process of bacteria. Bacteria develop resistance by making enzymes that will break down these small molecules once inside the cell. This new method attacks the outside of the cell directly, not something inside the cell. It wouldn't be impossible for bacteria to develop immunity to this, but it would be comparably very improbable.
Let's see, contribute to the creation of a superbug, or wash my fucking socks? Decisions, decisions...
You have socks just for fucking?
You don't?
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Au contraire!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambic
Some microbes literally shit alcohol.
Such organisms consume food and excrete alcohol until the ambient concentration is too high for them to tolerate any longer. After years of selective breeding some yeasts have been produced that can tolerate up to about 22% ABV but it doesn't seem to go much higher than that.
How many days could you take a shit in your living room until you could no longer tolerate it? I doubt any amount of evolutionary pressure could enable you to swim in a diarrhea swimming pool.