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
  • rageandl0v
    rageandl0vover 12 years
    gross eew look at the second one!! ;P
  • katileover 12 years
    i think that id discussting please nobody mencen it again
    • marvinover 12 years
      So kull
      • cylatzover 12 years
        this is why i don't want a phone....11 year old kids shoudn't have phones anyway...i think...
        • jellybean101
          jellybean101over 12 years
          Well some people need it like me. I use my phone almost everyday to call my mom to come pick me up from my activities.
        • Awesome Kover 12 years
          "nothing", it is more like do they harm us.
          • Awesome Kover 12 years
            I will be careful-er now..
            • tron56
              tron56over 12 years
              gross
              • Awesome Kover 12 years
                Unless, of course it is clean..
                • ari2013
                  ari2013over 12 years
                  I cant believe that all of that is like close to us. I dont like bacteria they can make you really sick
                  • Lolzover 12 years
                    I think that we should be cleaning our electronics anyways, and taking care of them too!