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Dyson Airblades 'Spread Germs 1,300 Times More Than Paper Towels' (telegraph.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The Journal of Applied Microbiology published a report claiming Dyson Airblade hand-driers spread 60 times more germs than standard air dryers, and 1,300 times more than standard paper towels. The researchers from University of Westminster conducted their research by dipping their hands in water containing a harmless virus. Then, they dried their hands with either a Dyson Airblade, a standard hot-air dryer, or a paper towel. Their research shows the Dyson drier's 430mph blasts of air are capable of spreading viruses up to 3 meters across a bathroom. Typical driers spread viruses up to 75cm (about 2.5ft), and the hand towels 25cm (less than 1ft).
But I tend to wash my hands instead of dunking them in vats of bacteria before drying them, whichever method of drying I use.
Typically when the dryer starts up, I can feel a fine spray of water hit me in the face. I avoid these dryers now, even if it means using my pant legs to dry my hands.
At least the old fashioned blow dryers that take forever to dry your hands don't direct a spray of water into your face.
Own one for two seconds and I defy you not to realise this.
See that damp stain on the wall underneath? And the puddle on the floor? Yeah, you washed your hands about five times, and it looks like you've been having water fights in front of the thing.
And then there was me who was always told that, actually, washing your hands (the process of wetting them) does little anyway. It's the drying / wiping that actually scrapes the crap off. Otherwise you literally just have a slightly damper environment for the bacteria on your hands anyway.
There's a reason that surgeons "scrub" up. It has little to do with the water itself, which just acts as a lubricant to assist the soap (which sticks to dirt and water) in sticking to the dirt and then providing a way to know where you've washed and to remove those parts that might have captured the dirt. It's the wiping / scrubbing / vigorous rub-down that actually removes that crap from you (and onto the floor / towel / soap / sink, obviously).
Like the Romans - who bathed in oil and then scraped it off, knowing the OIL took the dirt with it, not that smelling like a pizza for the rest of the day actually did anything in itself.
The reason we have hand-driers is because such scrubbing in public is considered... "wrong" somehow. You can't share a towel without transfer of bacteria, and people think individual paper towel is somehow killing the planet. Like blowing your nose - don't put it in a handkerchief and carry it around with you. Wipe it off on a tissue and throw the fucking thing away.
But, to be honest, it barely matters. Bacteria don't last long in those kinds of environments so long as they're cleaned occasionally, you can't really avoid spreading them anyway (it's not a question of some precisely contained particles - watch one of the slow-mo videos of a sneeze, it doesn't matter what you do it's like someone sneezing a handful of flour - it goes fecking everywhere, but, yes, put your hand up because it does stop quite a lot of your snot landing on someone else), and gadgets like this are quick and convenient which means more people might bother to wash their hands just to try it out.
But if you ever used one of these, I defy you to not have seen the crap and water on the floor underneath and around it that gets blasted off everyone else's hands.
Like all things Dyson (and Apple), half-decent idea, pretty aesthetics, fucking terrible design, but add a premium and be different and people buy it.
Dry, cold, and as soon as you turn and open the door handle without a paper towel, re-contaminated. Plus you're half deaf from the noise.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I hate the air blades. I knew they had to be germ machines. Just try to use one without touching the damn sides. Hate hate hate them!
Paul Lenhart writes words!
I'm pretty sure they say it's "to save paper" while really meaning "we're sick of emptying the trash can all the time" or possibly "we think it's less expensive because the electric budget goes somewhere else".
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Is there a TEDx talk, "How to make paper towels magically appear"? Or have you never used a restroom where they only have the dryers?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Shouldn't the premise for testing hand dryers be that the hands are washed with soap and are "clean" but wet? If we taint the water itself and measure how far that spreads, is that really a realistic test of how hygienic the dryer is?
Last time I checked, these were usually installed in bathrooms, which are far from sterile laboratory conditions. The machine itself may be hygienic if you only dried RO/DI water off a microscope slide while holding it with tongs fresh from autoclave while wearing a hazmat suit, but lets be honest.. most people come straight from the shitter, run a little bit of water on their hands and lather soap just long enough to keep up appearances. Many people don't even use soap; the chlorine in water will get it, right? So, it'd be more realistic to test these after running your hands down your ass crack than with "clean" hands, and these are the conditions that show the true colors of the drying method in question.
tl;dr
a Prius may get "up to" 58 MPG, but here in the real world...
No, you wanted them to be because you don't like them. That your desire happens to have overlapped with reality does not mean that you "knew" anything. We know this because...
I have, and it's easy. I don't think I've ever touched any part of the machine at all. But anyway, the reason they spread more germs is because they blow them further around a room, which has nothing to do with your apparent inability to use a machine without clumsily pawing at it like a dog. Maybe take of those Hulk Hands you got for birthday?
Is that the one where the guy admits that he has done absolutely no research and just makes the whole thing up?
For TED talks, that doesn't exactly narrow it down.
As a doctor I could suggest washing your hands with soap and water instead of virus and water. The former is the approved method whereas the latter is a little to new and usually frowned upon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So did you! Hooray!!