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Topic: Heat Kills Bacteria! Again...  (Read 11791 times)

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Offline Mitch

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Heat Kills Bacteria! Again...
« on: March 06, 2007, 11:56:48 PM »
In the December 2006 edition of Journal of Environmental Health a paper entitled "Microbial Inactivation by Microwave Radiation in the Home Environment", by Gabriel Bitton, talks about a novel way to kill bacteria. Microwave them! Apparently, the optimum method is to microwave for 2 minutes allowing for maximum bacteria frying and minimal sponge burning.


I wonder how novel it is to exploit heat as a method for killing bacteria though. If I'm not mistaken, there was a paper last year which reported using a hot iron as a method to kill anthrax delivered via snail mail. Both methods seem to utilize the same general idea, heat kills bacteria. Off the top of my head, here are some other ideas to kill bacteria in sponges, ie future research papers.

Other useful Ideas To Kill/Remove Bacteria From Sponges
  • Submerge sponge in boiling water.
  • Submerge sponge in bleach.
  • Submerge sponge in antibacterial hand-wash.
  • Buy a new sponge.

If you have more suggestions, feel free to share them.

Note 1: Brought to my attention by Steve Ritter from this Newscripts page: http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/85/i08/html/8508newscripts.html

-Mitch[/size]
« Last Edit: May 09, 2007, 12:04:37 AM by Mitch »
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Offline Maz

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Adventures with Sponges and Microwaves
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2007, 11:25:15 AM »
Lol.  How about, "Use sponge as target for heavy ion beam"  We might get some funny products off from that.  Don't know how long lived they would be though...
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Offline Mitch

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Adventures with Sponges and Microwaves
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2007, 11:28:58 AM »
Did I ever show you the picture of the bunny in the beampipe?
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Offline Ψ×Ψ

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Adventures with Sponges and Microwaves
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2007, 01:04:42 PM »
I prefer "buy a new sponge."  The old ones do fall apart after a while...I suppose you could also kill bacteria by using the sponge to clean out my hood.  I don't see how ANYTHING could survive in there!

You should post the bunny picture.  Unless it is a live bunny.
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Offline Mitch

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Again...
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2007, 08:52:20 PM »
You know what they say about Chemists with dirty hoods...
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Offline Ψ×Ψ

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Again...
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2007, 10:23:45 PM »
no, i don't, actually...
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Offline Mitch

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Again...
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2007, 11:24:01 PM »
I actually don't have a punch line for that one yet...
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Offline Donaldson Tan

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Re: Heat Kills Bacteria! Again...
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2007, 11:43:40 PM »
old sponges are disgusting.
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"Say you're in a [chemical] plant and there's a snake on the floor. What are you going to do? Call a consultant? Get a meeting together to talk about which color is the snake? Employees should do one thing: walk over there and you step on the friggin� snake." - Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO of Glaxosmithkline, June 2006
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