Why These 'Cool Images' May Send You Scurrying For Disinfectant!

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At first glance, these pictures seem a little intriguing and even appear cool to some of you. However, that opinion may change once you realize that the images are not some kind of modern art but instead, those of actual bacteria that thrive upon the touchscreens of all smart phones.

The photos are a result of a classroom experiment recently conducted by the students of England's University of Surrey for their Practical and Biomedical Bacteriology unit. They began by lifting an imprint off their smartphone screens and transferring it to bacterial growth Petri dishes.

Within three days, the students were rewarded for their efforts with many different kinds of 'cool images' - All belonging to the different bacterium that were happily thriving on their respective cell phones. The good news is that most of them were like the genus Micrococcus, a harmless bacteria that is commonly found on human skin.

A few however, did have the Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria responsible for ailments like staph infections and food poisoning. But Dr. Simon, the professor that assigned the experiment, was not fazed by that either - That's because 20% of people are persistent carriers of this bacteria while over 60% carry it intermittently!

Another common thing found was bacteria from things the owners had recently touched. For example, one Petri dish featured a dense colony of Bacillus mycoldes - A bacteria that normally thrive in soil, which led the professor to rightfully conclude that the owner of the cellphone had recently been gardening or somehow come in contact with mud. Not surprisingly, touchscreen phones harbored more bacteria than ones with keypads - Time to revert to good old flip phones again?

Resources: Dailymail.co.uk, gizmag.com

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399 Comments
  • ariana0613
    ariana0613over 12 years
    i know i watched a video in science class about this there is a lot of bacteria on cell phones
    • Abbyover 12 years
      EWW so cleaning my iphone everyday now O_O
      • Mangos rock over 12 years
        Pretty cool and probably smells a lot better than ampicillin+kanamycin+this gooey liquid in a petri dish( it smells awful, I mean awful). I am still gonna clean my iPhone screen though.
        • guest3000over 12 years
          Phone meet clean towel clean towel meet phone
          • veeniedog
            veeniedogover 12 years
            I'm totally going to clean my phone now!eww!!!
            • peace10
              peace10over 12 years
              bacteria is cool
              • pop4ever
                pop4everover 12 years
                I am totally cleaning my phone now!
                • hayeong2001
                  hayeong2001over 12 years
                  OMG!
                  • Kristoferover 12 years
                    The pictures are actually bacteria!
                    • awesomeperson24
                      awesomeperson24over 12 years
                      EWWW OMG!!! That is the most DISGUSTING picture I have ever seen!!!!! OMG!!!!