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This is what the bacteria that lives on your cell phone looks like
01.16.2015
08:42 am
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This week the University of Surrey in England released images of the types of bacteria that live on cell phones.

Scientist at the university put their phones in petri dishes containing agar—a gelatinous substance, obtained from algae that is supplemented with nutrients—to document the bacteria’s growth over three days. Though the images look gross most of the bacteria are harmless, and the final photos give a close-up view of the microscopic world with which we all intimately interact on a daily basis.

The most troublesome bacterium found was staphylococcus aureus that can cause skin rash, respiratory disease and food poisoning. The boffins at Surrey thought the staphylococcus aureus contamination had been caused by someone picking their nose.

Dr. Simon Park, senior lecturer in molecular biology told the Daily Mirror:

“From these results, it seems that the mobile phone doesn’t just remember telephone numbers, but also harbours a history of our personal and physical contacts such as other people, soil and other matter,” he said.

“[The experiment] was a way of showing [our students] directly and quite strikingly how contaminated their phones could be.”

The best advice to stopping this kind on bacteria thriving on your smart or cell phone is simply to clean it every week with some disinfectant.
 
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Via Daily Mirror.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.16.2015
08:42 am
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Teach your kids how to use the phone with terrifying puppets
10.15.2014
01:59 pm
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Anyone who’s ever observed the rate at which a four-year-old figures out an iPhone is well aware of how quickly kids pick up on new technology. It’s a curious phenomenon (especially when it’s taken years to teach my grandmother how to text), but I suspect that it has something to do with openness—kids don’t have to “unlearn” old tech that may be counterintuitive to a new gadget, nor are they as easily intimidated by learning, since the whole world is new to them anyway.

However, not everyone trusts the potential of our youth! Take Adventure In Telezonia, a 1949 instructional video from the Bell Telephone System (now AT&T)—this is a generation of people who believe children are morons best taught by terrifying puppets. Our protagonist Bobby is whisked away (basically kidnapped) to the land of Telezonia by Handy (the murderous marionette), who teaches him phone etiquette and… how to dial. The only real benefit I see to the film is to remind kids that machines are expensive and breakable—something they never really seem to grasp until they drop something and destroy it.

Got that, kids? If you abuse your iPhone, Handy will come for you.
 

 
Via Network Awesome

Posted by Amber Frost
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10.15.2014
01:59 pm
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