While cleaning my kitchen counter with Lysol last night after dealing with some raw chicken, I had a stroke of self-proclaimed genius in wondering if it would be possible to create a household cleaner that would actually change color based on the presence of germs… Kind of like that kids’ mouthwash changes color to show where the plaque is. Say it could turn one color to indicate salmonella was present, or another color for e. coli, and so on (covering the most typical and harmful household bacteria).
Would this in any way be possible? How could such a thing work? And if this is indeed an original and workable idea, can someone send me lots of money?
Yes but could it be tailored to only change color in the presence of certain bacteria, and perhaps above a certain concentration threshold for being dirtier-than-average?
While I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it could be done, it’d take some pretty fancy chemistry, and I suspect that bleach or Lysol or ammonia or whatever germ-killing agent you have in the cleaner would also be adequate to break down the fancy chemicals that do the bacteria-detection. So you’d need to first spray a surface with detector spray to see what sorts of bacteria you’re dealing with, and then spray it again with the actual sanitizer.
Add horseshoe crab blood. However, this is for ensuring sterility and I suppose that **Zsofia **is correct in that you are unlikely to achieve sterility in the house. What would be good is something to check for *specific *bacteria like salmonella.
BTW when I saw the subject, I thought: My household cleaner hasn’t changed color. We hired her two years ago and she’s still the same.
As a fun household experiment, you can use hydrogen peroxide to detect catalase positive bacteria (which is a lot of them). Catalase breaks it down and releases gasses, so if the bacteria are there, it’ll bubble.
–Germs are our friends. We’d be dead without them, and without exposure to them, our immune systems can be compared with the couch potato who never exercises.
–A dirty house has been shown to be a healthier environment than an overly-clean one.
–Our obsession with germs has reached the level of national dysfunction, misunderstanding and OCD on a grand scale–fostered, unfortunately by a lethal combination of medical hysteria (my profession’s fault), Oprah (TV in general), and money (Lysol, etc).
–The only reason for such a product would be to give me a chuckle watching germ-obsessed OCDers misspend their money and time because they have bought (literally) into a total miscomprehension of the germ theory of disease.
…now go lick your toilet bowl and excercise your immune system. While you are at it, read about how naive immune systems was the major killer for indigenous populations invaded by outsiders. Some side reading on how folks with no immune systems (a chemo patient with no white cells, e.g.) crump from their own organisms–not the ones on the kitchen counter–would be of added value.
And yes; your idea would make you a fortune, unfortunately.
Oh I’m fully aware that such a product would turn various normal people into OCD clean freaks… Which is why the company that would make it would turn quite a penny. Screw my conscience, I want to be rich!
If you could package it such that one bottle contained two nozzles (one detector, one cleaner), you’d make a fortune. Even better if you could “dial” the nozzle to choose which fluid to use. People would replace the bottle as soon as one of the two ran out. Oh, and deliberately make it so that the expensive detector solution runs out way before the cheap cleaner.
If she is exposed to the right germs she will turn color (usually greenish, but sometimes a bright red or a pale yellow). And just the right germs and she will stop moving.
–Germs are our friends. We’d be dead without them, and without exposure to them, our immune systems can be compared with the couch potato who never exercises.
[QUOTE]
Now, if there were no germs, then we wouldn’t need immune systems, would we?
–Germs are our friends. We’d be dead without them, and without exposure to them, our immune systems can be compared with the couch potato who never exercises.
No, but we would die, and probably all of life, if bacteria did not exist.
To be fair, that EZ-pathogen detecting product would have a lot of market outside of home-cleaning use. For instance, tracking pollution would be much easier. Currently, testing water for bacteria requires culturing samples in a lab, which is a pain to collect, refrigerate, transport and wait for. And then, the result is pretty general and not very specific for sewage versus goose poop.
