Cold-resistant bacteria

[Baron_Greenback]

From the latest (very good) column, can I just say that this passage

Now, Anna: If you’d thought about it for perhaps ten seconds before hitting “send,” you’d have recalled that there are several natural phenomena — one of the best-known is called winter — that produce refrigeratorlike conditions without any human help

is classic Cecil. You’ve still got it, old chap.

[matt_mcl]

In the same column, I’m confused about what the headphone experiment told us:

At the beginning of the experiment, the typical headset had 60 microorganisms on its surface; after an hour’s use of the headphones by a volunteer, that number went up to 650… fine, wearing headphones causes the ears to teem with bacteria…

I might be misreading, but the statistic to me doesn’t prove at all that wearing headphones causes bacteria on the ear to increase. All it proves is that if you put headphones on, bacteria will get onto the headphones – which anyone might have guessed. If you touch anything, bacteria will get on it.

If they wanted to know whether headphones cause bacteria to multiply on the ears, shouldn’t they have measured the bacteria on the ears, not on the headphones?

(Also, I’m pretty sure that those figures of 60 and 650 bacteria need some units of surface area, e.g. 60 bacteria per square centimetre or similar.)

[Una_Persson]

@matt_mcl

If they wanted to know whether headphones cause bacteria to multiply on the ears, shouldn’t they have measured the bacteria on the ears, not on the headphones?

(Also, I’m pretty sure that those figures of 60 and 650 bacteria need some units of surface area, e.g. 60 bacteria per square centimetre or similar.)

In the original technical paper (which Cecil asked some of us to review), they say:

“The bacterial flora of 20 headset devices were evaluated before and after they were worn for 1 hour. Bacteria were recovered from all headsets, and their number increased from a mean (+/- standard deviation) of 60 +/- 5 organisms per device to 650 +/- 51 organisms per device.”

Within that paper, they reference their 1985 study wherein they did show that 55% of the cases had a significant increase in ear bacteria (but not 700 times), a decrease in 5%, and no change in 40%.

[dropzone]

So the headsets weren’t sterilized first. Okay, were the breeds that increased the ones that came in on the headphones or those indigenous to the ears? Or did the researchers wimp out, saying, “Bacterias is bacterias,” at the prospect of trying to sort them out? It’s important for some people to know if it’s their germs or somebody elses that are growing on them.

They really needed to consult with a person with germaphobic tendencies when they designed the experiment. That person ain’t me, since I figured a regular dose of microbes was needed for a healthy immune system long before the pros did*, but I’m OCD enough to be able to put myself in a germaphobe’s shoes so that I cannot sleep in motel rooms.

• • That discovery by real scientists was like manna from Heaven for us slobs. “See, honey? I wasn’t making it up,” except I was.

[Una_Persson]

@dropzone

So the headsets weren’t sterilized first. Okay, were the breeds that increased the ones that came in on the headphones or those indigenous to the ears? Or did the researchers wimp out, saying, “Bacterias is bacterias,” at the prospect of trying to sort them out? It’s important for some people to know if it’s their germs or somebody elses that are growing on them.

There is a table of 9 different bacterial types and counts of each in the article. They include such critters as Staph. epidermidis, Staph. aureus, etc. There is much discussion in the 1985 article but no table. You may want to ask Cecil for more information on how valid the study appears; in my opinion as a non-biology person it seems decent. It’s possible Cecil had other sources, and I know others help him out with fact-checking.

[dropzone]

But not good enough if you’re CRAZY.

[Gymnopithys]

If headphones create the right environment for bacteria, then hearing aids would be the perfect incubator. Yet I’ve been wearing aids 12 hours a day for many years. My ear should be crawling with bacteria and fungi. Nothing of the sort. I suppose earwax has antibacterial properties.

[clapifyoulikeme]

I don’t have any hard evidence of this, but I used to get the occasional zit on my ear and lower cheek. Since I started wiping my headphones with an alcohol wipe once a week, that’s decreased significantly.