Biohazard in the Bathroom

It all started out with a harmless enough seeming sentence. "Hey did you know that your toilet sprays 20 feet when you flush it so you shouldn't keep your toothbrush by it?" Initially I brushed this off as the stuff urban legends are made of. My bathroom isn't even 20 feet and my toothbrush tastes fine so who cares? Once I was able to rationalize myself out of a germaphobe panic, my curiosity peaked. So I did the research. And I will now present my startling findings to you.

There's actually a name for this toilet spraying thing. It's called the aerosol effect of toilets and was first mentioned by University of Arizona environmental microbiologist Charles Gerba when he published a scientific article in 1975 describing bacterial and viral aerosols due to toilet flushing. "Droplets are going all over the place—it's like the Fourth of July," said Gerba. Gerba's research has shown that water droplets travel in an invisible cloud six to eight feet up and out every time you flush your toilet. Given the size of most bathrooms, that pretty much means your entire bathroom is regularly sprayed with toilet water. That means your towels, toothbrush, toilet paper, and reading material are all pretty well contaminated.

Not only is this bacterial mist flying around eight feet, it is also capable of remaining in the air for two hours after each flush, giving it maximal time to float and spread. That means not only is your bathroom contaminated, but it's contaminating you. Every time you flush you are covering yourself with and inhaling this toilet-generated bacterial mist. One researcher called this the F3 force: fecal fountain factor. The potential for bacteria is further compounded by the room temperature of the water. To break it down for you: Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, E. coli and Shigella bacteria, hepatitis A virus and the common cold virus are all common inhabitants of public bathrooms. The best way to keep yourself healthy? Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and hot water for 20-30 seconds (that's roughly three times through Row, Row, Row Your Boat) every time you use the bathroom.

Surprisingly, toilet seats are the least contaminated place in the bathroom. The place with the highest concentration will probably surprise you. I'll give you a hint. It's not the toilet. You might want to brace yourself for this. The place with the highest microbial concentration is.....the sink. Gerba attributes this to infrequent and less attentive cleaning. And your toothbrush? It's a hot spot for fecal bacteria and germs spewed into the air by the aerosol effect.

What does that mean for you? Clean your bathroom more often and more thoroughly. Every area should be cleaned just as well as you clean your toilet, including the ceiling. Also, since your sink is the most contaminated area, you should thoroughly wash your hands after any sink-related activity like washing your face and brushing your teeth. And remember to wash your hands after using your blow-dryer. Like hot-air hand dryers, it can increase the bacterial count on your hands by as much as 162%. If you're still not convinced that bacteria exist in any significant quantities on your hands, consider that the kitchen sink actually harbors the most fecal matter in the average home, carried there by unwashed hands after using the bathroom. Keep your toothbrush out of the line of fire in a medicine cabinet or buy a cover for it. Finally, the simplest solution of all, close the toilet lid before you flush. This greatly reduces the effects of the aerosol effect.

If you're still not convinced, try your own experiment. Flush your toilet. Add 1 tablespoon of food coloring. Lift the toilet seat and stretch plastic wrap across the toilet bowl. Flush and watch the droplets fly up. If the plastic wrap wasn't there, all that would now be in the air. Remove the plastic wrap and wash your hands.

Note: When I performed this experiment at home, I was under-whelmed with the amount of toilet spray. My conclusion? This is probably not a concern for your average healthy adult. Those who are immunocompromised (children, the elderly, etc.) may want to take this into consideration. Personally, I'm trying to close the lid, because hey why not?

That Travel Bug

I love to travel. Recently, pretty much any free time I've gotten I hit the road. This year, I've traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, Lexington, Kentucky, Massachusetts (I'm not entirely sure that counts as fun vacation travel, but I did go there), Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and all my fabulous cruising destinations. In August, Kim's family is taking me to Mexico!! Whoot. I can't wait. I want to go NOW. But enough about my travel bug.

If you have a travel big too (which I'm sure you do, because really why not?) you should check out Tripbase Alpha. This ingenious site allows you to enter what you like to do or not do on vacation. The categories include nightlife, dining, shopping, nature, and attractions. You simply use a sliding bar to indicate how important these things are to you and Tripbase spits back your top travel destinations. Once you've put this info in, you can hide popular destinations, set the dates and duration of your trip, departure city, budget, type of trip, weather, tourist season, and continents. For fun, I did a test run. I lowered the importance of nightlife, upped the food a smidge, upped the shopping a little more but less then the food, upped nature, and set attractions to the max. Tripbase then tells that 15 places match what I like: London, Boston, San Fransisco, New York, Sydney, Paris, Chicago, San Diego, Washington, Singapore, Rome, Portland, Florence, Auckland, and Beijing. If you weren't happy with these results, you can continue to tweek your sliding bar settings until you get results you're happy with. I think my favorite feature is the hide popular destinations. When I use this feature, my very typical list of major world cities turns much more interesting. Now my 15 results include places like: Kyoto, Japan; Lyon, France; Hobart, Australia; Jerusalem, Israel; Caracas, Venezuela; George Town, Malaysia; and Mumbai, India. I'd be happy to test the accuracy of these results if anyone would like to give me a free vacation. Anyone?

How to Save the World: Part III

After a brief hiatus, How to Save the World has returned! Up this week is something I've been working on for the past few months: stop eating beef.

This one is kind of hard for me because I really enjoy beef in all of its forms, my family eats a lot of beef, and when someone else is picking up the tab, I almost always get beef. But I've been trying not to. I figure reducing my beef intake has to be beneficial. I think you'll think so to.

Why should you stop eating beef? Mad cow disease? Well, that could be one reason, but it's actually not the best one. Too much cholesterol? True, but I don't care if you want to go on statins. The biggest beef concern? Its detrimental effects on the environment and the economy.

Let's start with the environment. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a report with some shocking realities. According to the report:

+ Livestock use 30% of the earth's entire land surface, including 33% of global arable land used in producing feed for livestock
+ Livestock generate 18% more greenhouse gasses then transportation
+ Livestock account for 9% of CO2 derived from human-related activities but much larger
portions of the more potent greenhouse gasses: 65% of human-related nitrous oxide and 37% of human-related methane
+ In Latin America, 70% of former rain forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing. In fact, beef production is the major cause of the destruction of the world's rain forests. The high price of beef encourages ranchers to burn the forest to create new range lands. The fragile, thin rain forest soil cover is quickly destroyed by grazing in 1-2 years, and the ranchers move on to burn another area, in a never-ending cycle of destruction. Thousands of species of plants and animals have already been destroyed forever, as well as straining the earth's ability to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. At current rates, the rain forests will be totally destroyed in 30-50 years.

So basically one-third of our planet and one-fifth of the planet's animals are being used to feed your tummy. Surprising, huh? And we haven't even looked at the economy yet. We already know that livestock take up a third of the earth's land. That's not too bad sounding until you consider who that beef is feeding: the US, Europe, and Japan. Here's another third for you. One third of the world's grain harvest is used to feed cows instead of feeding people. In the US, that number is more then 70%. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of beef. All this in a world where nearly one billion people do not have enough food. And it's not just children in Africa. According to the USDA 35.1 million people in the US live in food insecure households. 16.9% of ALL US children live in food insecure households. And these numbers are only rising. As beef consumption and prices continue to rise, we are only perpetuating this cycle. Economies based on local cash crops are quickly being converted to beef exports with the profits going to the wealthy few.

So what can you go? It's pretty simple. Stop eating beef. If you can't stop, limit your consumption to special occasions or for cravings. Not only are you helping to save the world, but you'll lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of exposure to the deadly E. coli bacteria. And mad cow. And weird icky hormones. Really, it's a win win situation. The Chick-fil-a cows are right. Eat more chicken!

Blowing Bubbles if the Key to World Peace

While not endorsing smoking, I do whole-heartedly endorse bubbles. Therefore, I must endorse the Bubble Guy. This guy has a love for bubbles that even I cannot comprehend, and I do love bubbles. I've always said that if everyone stopped each day and blew some bubbles, we had have world peace because how can you blow bubbles and not be happy? So if you can't blow bubbles, watch this guy blow some.

Me Thinks I Need This

This is one I just can't explain. Wow. You need to check this out. I could make some mean frozen drinks with this sucker.

The Perils of Illegal Downloading

I have to say that my life would not be the same without the MajorGeeks. I, despite my seemingly innocent exterior, like to download cracks to those games you have to buy from places like shockwave and bigfish. Most of the time, this does not work and I end up with some trojan, malware, or other virus on my computer. Why do I keep doing this you ask? Well...because so far I've been able to take care of it every time. I discovered this malware removal guide from MajorGeeks. It takes a little while to work through and might involve some posting and working on some fixes, but when you're done, your hard drive will be squeaky clean and minty fresh. I highly recommend it to anyone that's having any computer issues or has downloaded anything from other then 100% reputable sources. You'd be surprised what's hiding out in there. If you go back to their forums, they also have tons of free help for all kinds of issues you might have with your computer. Thanks MajorGeeks for saving my illegal downloading ass!