You may get sick from germs present in the most unexpected of places.

Germs are everywhere, and 99 percent of them don’t do much harm. However, the rest can lead to illness. And while you may think you’ve got the formula cracked in avoiding germs, you may be surprised that some of the most germ-infested places are those that you consider harmless. You may already avoid obvious offenders (i.e. public toilets), but germs often lurk unnoticed.

Are these culprits making you sick?

1. Cell Phone

This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Cellphones carry up to ten times more bacteria than most toilet seats. You cellphone is often in close proximity to your face, mouth, ears, nose, and hands. Meanwhile, it is placed on a variety of surfaces throughout the day and oftentimes passed to other people to use.

2. Lemon Slice

If you’re a stickler for details, this one’s for you. In a study from the Journal of Environmental Health, it was found that some 70 percent of the lemon wedges placed on restaurant glasses carried disease-causing microbes, including fecal bacteria and E. coli.

3. Dishtowels

Dishtowels are chockfull of bacteria. In one study, approximately 7 percent of kitchen towels were contaminated with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a staph bacteria that is difficult to treat and can cause life-threatening infections. Dishtowels are also vulnerable to E. coli and other bacteria strains.

4. Refrigerator Seal

Take a look at your refrigerator seal right now and you may not have to read any further to understand why it’s such a hotspot for germs. The refrigerator seal is what lines the door so that it can close fully. In one study, the seal around the fridge in various households around the U.S. tested positive 83 percent of the time for common molds.

5. Soap Dispensers

You may want to consider NOT washing your hands after using a public toilet. Ironic, but advisable. Why, you may ask? Some 25 percent of public restroom soap dispensers are contaminated with fecal bacteria.

6. Vacuum Cleaner

Another ironic place to find bacteria is in the vacuum cleaner. What is meant to clean your home and rid it of dirt and debris may actually be spreading E. coli and fecal matter. A study discovered that 13 percent of all vacuum cleaner brushes are positive for E. coli and 50 percent for fecal bacteria.

7. The Car

The car is paradise for germs. On average there are 10,000 bacteria per four square inches. The number of people coming in and out of the car is surely to blame, but even more incriminating is the ventilation and exposure to sun. Bacteria creep in through the vents and are drawn to the dashboard, where the sun is most likely to hit. Warmth leads to bacteria growth, and the rest is your common cold waiting to happen.

Related on EcoSalon
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The 5 Best Immune System Boosters to Prevent Colds and Flu

Lemon Glass in Water Image from Shutterstock

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Beards. They’re on trend, they’re pretty hot, but they’re full of poop… Or are they? The plot of the poop beard mystery started in early May on Vuz TV…

On May 1, Vuz TV published a, well, let’s be honest, a pretty sketchy report about beards. The jist of the story? Basically, that beards are full of poop. After the report was released it obviously went viral. I mean, who can resist sharing the “poop beard” story with all their bearded friends?

But after reading the supposedly scary poop beard story, we aren’t too freaked. The following are some of the details.

According to Vuz TV, via the NY Post, a group of microbiologists in New Mexico were the first to find the bacteria meandering in unsuspecting man beards. “Microbiologist John Golobic, of Quest Diagnostics, swabbed a number of beards searching for bacteria for the study and found that some of the bacteria ‘are the kind of things that you find in feces,’” reports the NY Post.

Uh, OK. “Are the kind of things” doesn’t exactly sound science-y to me.

Anyhow, it appears that the poop beard theory is based on some reasonable facts. “The key to a poo-free beard is to make sure you wash your hands regularly and avoid playing with and twirling the hair,” reports Vuz. Sure, totally reasonable. But if that’s all dudes need to do to keep their beards free of poop, doesn’t everything we touch, and subsequently touch some part of ourselves, have poop on it, too?

Yes. Yes it does. The masterminds at IFLScience have broken down the basics:

“Enteric bacteria are in the family Enterobacteriaceae and are often harmless, though some can cause disease. You, however, do not need to worry about these bacteria because they are everywhere. Phillip M. Tierno, a microbiologist at New York University, told New York Magazine that ‘we, as a society, are literally bathed in feces.’”

So, we’re all covered in poop. Thanks, science!

Related on EcoSalon

The Beard Identity: What Growing a Beard Taught Me About Gender Roles (and Maybe Even Race)

The Other Side of Sexism and the Return of The Sacred Masculine

8 Male Stereotypes to Just Get Over Already

Beard image from Shutterstock

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Gut bacteria is a key to optimal health because it’s so closely linked to immune health. And though it’s responsible for digestion, synthesizing vitamins and nutrients, and even important to brain health, it’s largely a mystery. Now researchers have found that plant fungus may be equally crucial to soil health and as a result, it may have a large stake in the future of farming.

A plant’s photosynthetic abilities are largely tied to an ancient microbe known as chloroplast that plants depend on, according to Gastropod and reported on Mother Jones. And while we can take a snapshot of the bacterial and plant fungus makeup we don’t know the duties that each species performs. But even still, large companies are beginning to see this as a financial windfall.

According to Mother Jones:

When it comes to the human microbiome, processed food giants have started adding probiotics and prebiotics to everything from frozen yogurt to coconut water. In the field, scientists, small biotech companies, and agricultural behemoths such as Monsanto are all racing to develop probiotics for plants: learning from bacteria and fungi to develop supplements that can help crops grow better, using less fertilizer and pesticide, even in challenging environmental conditions.

One fungus has been found to be particularly important. Mycorrhizal fungi supports 80 percent of plants on Earth. British researcher Ian Sanders thinks he can increase harvests by honing in on mycorrhizal fungi and figuring out how to help it perform even better. Other companies are looking to adapt fungi that can protect plants against cold, drought, and floods in the hopes that microbes can help feed the world.

Related on EcoSalon

USDA Farming Techniques Improve Ugandan Crop Yields

Farmer’s Markets, Food Placemaking, and Smarter, Stronger Communities

Why Rural America is Going Hungry

Image: Kim Carpenter

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A round-up of what we’re reading right now.

An economic burden on people and governments? Yes, we’re talking about same-sex marriage bans. [Via TakePart]

Can a fast food chain ever really adopt a Slow Food approach? We think not, McDonalds. [Via Grist]

In New Orleans, an old mayonnaise factory is turned into an arts incubator, complete with recycled tires for insulation.  [Via Curbed]

Art is a powerful force. Here’s another example in temporary street art that promotes peace. [Via Treehugger]

Is there a cleaner gender? That is debatable, but as it turns out, men’s offices have more bacteria. [Via National Geographic]

Image: TakePart

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Beneficial bacteria and other microorganisms that make the world go round.

Our planet is home to about 5 trillion trillion bacteria, a number that seems too huge to contemplate. That may sound scary to people who think of bacteria as nasty little bugs that just want to make us sick, but the fact is, tiny organisms like bacteria, fungi and protists are absolutely essential both to the health of our bodies and to that of the entire planet. Unseen and under-appreciated, these organisms play a huge role in marine food chains, the growth of forests, climate change and our own digestive systems.

Lactobacilli in our digestive systems

We’ve got ten times more bacterial cells in our bodies than cells of our own. In fact, fully 10% of our dried body weight is made up of bacteria, and most of that isn’t the harmful sort that causes infection, illness and tooth decay. Scientists are only just beginning to explore what they’re now calling the “human biome,” and they haven’t yet identified most of the bacteria that our bodies host. But we do know that over 500 species of bacteria take up residence in our intestines alone, and these microorganisms may just be the most important ones in our bodies.

It’s hard to narrow down just which species of gut bacteria is the most important, but there’s one that stands out for its sheer bad-bacteria-fighting power: Lactobacillus acidophilus. This acid-resistant bacterium colonizes the lining of the small intestine, and also covers the lining of the vagina, cervix and urethra. Producing lactic acid, L. acidophilus helps our bodies fight virulent strains of E. coli, Staphylococcus aureas, Salmonella, Candida albicans, Listeria and other types of bacteria that we really don’t want getting comfortable in our bodies. This is exactly why you should be eating foods that contain live probiotics, like yogurt.

Marine bacteria that produce oxygen

Likely the most abundant photosynthetic organism on earth, Prochlorococcus is a genus of tiny marine cyanobacteria with an especially high concentration of chlorophyll. In fact, though you’ve probably never heard of it before, this microorganism may be the most plentiful species on earth, with 100,000 cells found within a single milliliter of sea water. Amazingly, these microscopic bacteria account for an estimated 20% of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere, so they provide a lot of the air we breathe. Prochlorococcus are also among the beneficial marine microbes involved in oceanic nitrogen cycles, fixing nitrogen in the water so that the entire food chain can flourish.

Mycorrhizal fungi help feed plants

Nearly every plant growing on this earth is host to parasites called Mycorrhizal fungi. Forming an extensive network of pseudo-roots attached to the plant’s actual roots, these fungi can increase the plant’s water and nutrient uptake between 10 and 1,000 times. Plant roots can’t always take up certain minerals own their own, especially in alkaline soil, but the fungi can access the minerals and make them available to the plants.These fungi can also help protect plants that are rooted in soils with high concentrations of toxic metals, probably because the metals bind with the fungi instead of being taken up by the roots of the plants.

Bacteria that create rain and snow

Microbiologists recently made a very surprising find: living microorganisms that get blown into the sky, including bacteria, fungi, diatoms and algae, can be used by clouds as precipitation starters. One researcher at Montana State University discovered that bacteria was highly concentrated in the innermost core of hail stones, learning that the bacteria allowed the ice to form at warmer temperatures than normal. This discovery will likely spur more research into just how big of a role microbes play in weather cycles.

Protists at the bottom of the food chain

Mostly unicellular, protists have evolutionary histories that stretch back at least two billion years. While some protists aren’t seen as beneficial – like the genus Plasmodium, which causes malaria – these microscopic organisms are a critical part of marine food chains. For example, diatoms, a type of protist, serve as the main base of the food chain in both fresh water and ocean habitats, supplying calories to larger protists which are then eaten by small animals, and so on.

Moss bacteria that help forests grow

Ancient trees aren’t just beautiful examples of the natural world. They’re also hosts to species of moss that contain crucial bacterial which are twice as effective at “fixing” nitrogen as the species that live in the soil. Highlighting the importance of maintaining old-growth trees, especially those in coastal temperate rainforests, a study on these cyanobacteria found that they take nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to plants in a highly efficient way that few other organisms can match. That means that old growth trees covered in moss can actually help the forests around them grow.

Bacteria and fungi that break down organic matter

Decomposition is a complex process involving hundreds if not thousands of different organisms, like earthworms, millipedes and maggots. But behind the scenes, it’s really the bacteria and fungi that do most of the work turning dead organic matter, from wood to human bodies, into nourishing soil. Consuming the dead organic matter for energy, bacteria help to recycle nutrients like nitrogen and carbon back into the life cycle.

Microbes that help regulate climate

Aside from seeding clouds with precipitation, microbes play another role in weather and climate: storing and producing even more carbon dioxide than all of the earth’s trees and plants. Microbes help the world’s soils store more than 2.5 trillion tons of carbon, while photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans pump 55 billions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year – eight times the amount we humans produce through fossil fuel burning and deforestation.

But as the Arctic tundra starts to melt as a result of climate change, microbes have been able to flourish in a previously inhospitable region, breaking down organic matter and releasing even more carbon dioxide. Scientists are still studying just how this will affect the pace of climate change.

Photo: Colin-47

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Chemical cleaners remind me of elementary school. Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth alongside Ms. Pac Man, the harsh smell of bleach and whatever that green gravel they sprinkled around could knock this third-grader onto her dungarees. Now it turns out, that cleaner might be responsible for my years as an allergy-ridden teen. And not for the reason you might think, (the smell, the chemicals, and the vomit it inevitably tried to mask…). It’s because a new study out of the University of Michigan shows that some soaps and cleaners are making children more prone to allergies as teenagers.

We’ve already reported on the dangers of antibacterial soap. These can leave a residue on your skin with a few surviving bacteria – which promptly multiply into stronger bacteria that are much harder to kill. But this latest information takes it up a notch. As Metro.com reports, the triclosan found in soaps, toothpaste and other hygiene products can change the immune system in a young person. Allison Aiello is an associate professor and the lead on the study. As she told Metro.com, “It is possible that a person can be too clean for their own good.”

So triclosan is a Very Bad Thing. (Just how bad? Skin Deep links it to cancer, reproductive toxicity, skin irritations and more.) Good old-fashioned soap and water work well, but more and more people are reaching for the heavy-duty antibacterial soaps that could probably take out a zombie plague. But don’t forget, there are many good reasons not to wash daily. So where does this leave us?

For some, it’s thinking that the culture of clean has gone too far. Yes, germs are bad, and you’re never going to find me walking barefoot through a public bathroom or sticking my hand on things well acquainted with other people. But when I find myself fishing out my shirt sleeve to open a door or gazing in awe at a friend who doesn’t, I have to wonder. Have the cartoon germs which scamper smarmily across cleaner commercials gotten into my subconscious? Or am I really just being a good citizen and not spreading germs?

But as more and more evidence shows that extreme vigilance on the germ front can actually harm us, it is hard to know what’s safe and what’s neurotic. I’ve noticed that when I get sick, I can’t trace the cause to touching the wrong door knob or sitting in the wrong restaurant booth. (Though I can trace my last bad cold to a woman who, rounding a corner on the street, sneezed directly on me. Avoid corners during the aforementioned zombie plague.) In the end, it just time some of us relax a little and let the sunshine (and dirt) in.

Image: arlingtonva

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We recently had Peter Ingwersen, founder of Noir on record, saying, “Technology will save us all. I think that man-made fibers are truly amazing and will be the new hot thing in eco-materials. We will all need to overcome our prejudice that natural made fibers are more eco-friendly.”

Not to worry, Peter, you know as well as I do that there are mad scientists, I mean pioneers, out there pushing the boundaries for all kinds of fabrics. Take this new one made from tea, of all things.

The fabric is grown in a soup of green tea, sugar and other nutrients, over the course of several days. Bacteria is then added to the solution to produce “long filaments of cellulose that clump together to form thin mats of fabric that float on the top of the mixture. Once dried, this becomes become see-through and similar in appearance to papyrus. However, it can be treated, dyed and molded to produce different textures and effects,” says the UK’s Daily Telegraph.

The project is led by Suzanne Lee, a senior research fellow and designer at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, who has already used the material to make clothes. This has inspired Professor Paul Freemont and Professor Alexander Bismarck, materials experts at Imperial College in London who are furthering research on the fabric “using synthetic biology techniques by introducing the genes needed to produce these cellulose sheets into other bacteria.” More details are outlined on the project’s website, Bio-Couture.

There’s just one problem: While the fabric is extremely tough, apparently it really stinks.

“It doesn’t have a very nice smell at the moment though because it is produced by bacteria, but we are trying to overcome that. There is still some way to go before it can be used as a standard item in the high street,” says Freemont. “These are projects we need to think about because of the impending resource shortages we face and one thing we are not short on is bacteria.”

How refreshing?

Image from Bio-Couture

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Did you know that if you swallow your gum, it will hang out in your stomach forever? Such are the legends of childhood burned in our brain. But what’s truth, what’s myth, and what’s there simply to scare us into good behavior? After all, aren’t all the best nursery rhymes really about avoiding bubonic plague and possibly flesh-craving wolves?

But not all food is so frightening. We decided to debunk some of our strangest myths about food – check out what we found!

Double dipping your food is dangerous.

This is TRUE. Yes, many of us all familiar with George Constanza and his double-dipped chip. (And if you are not, click here immediately.) But will the double-dipped chip really make you sick? Yes, it turns out that it could. Experts say that double dipping a chip can transfer about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the dip. So if you at a party, that means 50 to 100 bacteria can travel from one mouth to another, courtesy of the dip. And sure, we like our friends. But do we really like them that much?

If you drop food on the ground, you have five seconds before it is contaminated.

And yet, this is FALSE. First of all, nasty bacteria such as Salmonella (which causes food poisoning) can live on surfaces for over four weeks. If you drop a piece of bologna on tile, 99 percent of the bacteria will practically instantly adhere to the cold cut. If you drop it on wood, around 68 percent of the bacteria moves onto the sandwich meat. If it is on a carpet, .5 percent of bacteria makes bologna its new home. And it all happens instantly. Still want to eat it?

Fresh fruits and veggies are more nutritious than frozen ones.

This is FALSE, and score for the refrigerator set. (Like the jet set, but cooler.) Some of this has to do with fruits and veggies high carbon footprint. Fruit and veggies are at their best nutritional levels right after they are picked from the vine. So the farther they have to travel to your mouth, the more time they have to degrade. When you properly freeze something, you are essentially halting its degradation. But look for clumping in your frozen bag of goodies – if there’s clumping, it is likely the food thawed on travel.

Eating at night makes you gain weight.

This is FALSE and is really a matter of word play. And yes, before Oprah and her minions set upon me; allow me to introduce the science behind it. The time of day of consumption does not reflect on how much weight you will gain. The reason you gain weight is because you consume more calories than you burn. If you have consumed less calories during the day and have a larger meal at night, you’re not going to gain weight. Does that mean you should pig out right before bed time? Heck no, because if you want to maintain your weight, you should always budget your calories .

You can cure a hangover with food.

This is FALSE but man, I wish this were true. Now that I am older and learned, I drink less. (More emphasis on the older and less on the learned, but still.) But “back in the day” (I’m also holding an ear horn to my head right now) I used to party like it was 1999 for about eight years running. So I became well acquainted with epically-bad hangovers.

And I swore that slices of plain, whole wheat bread were the key to lessening my barf-marathon. But in actuality, they weren’t. You have a hangover because you drank too much and are dehydrated. (So, yes, drink a lot of water. But you’ll still going to feel terrible until the excessive alcohol is out of your system.) You’ve also over-taxed your liver, which is less able to supply glucose to all the needed parts and causing all these yucky feelings. The only true cure to a hangover is not to drink so much alcohol in the first place.

Image: Triple Tri

The post ‘Double Dipping Will Kill You’ and Other Strange Myths About Food appeared first on EcoSalon.

America has declared war, and it’s not against high-waisted jeans. (Though on that subject, consider me General Patton.) Germs are the new enemy and we’re engaged in hand-to-hand combat with them. Recall the sight of Britney Spears traipsing across gas station bathrooms barefoot, which horrified people more than her shaved head or marriage to K-Fed. Americans hate germs, and anti-bacterial gels, sprays, soaps and wipes are the new norm for most handbags.

And I’m not saying people are wrong. If we’re going to go full neurotic pancakes – I have a reoccurring nightmare where I am in a toilet stall too small and fall onto the uncovered toilet, which looks clean enough. I don’t like the germs either and was as pleased as anyone when anti-bacterial products appeared on the market a few years ago.

But are anti-bacterial products really the best thing for America since the “pie versus cupcake” wars? I don’t think there’s a doctor out there that will tell you to forgo washing your hands, especially in times of serious health crisis. Hand washing is the first line of defense in staying healthy and keeping others the same. So yes, wash your hands and enjoy doing so. But if you are using anti-bacterial soaps, there are a couple points to consider.

First point – bacteria evolves. Experts point out that the over-consumption of anti-bacterial products is leading to strains of resistant bacteria. As Discovery Health reports, “by using more antibacterial products, people may encourage bacteria to evolve and become more virulent than they were before. Overusing antibacterial products is now a major point of study within the field of pharmacoepidemiology – the study of how people use medicines.”

Further, when you use anti-bacterial soaps or gels, a few bacteria may survive the first application. And then what happens is basically War of the Worlds meets your skin. Microbiologists report that this leaves a residual “soup” on your skin where only the strongest survive – and promptly mutate into resistant bacteria. Yes, it’s H.G. Wells’ classical tale but without Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. And also? It’s taking place in your pores.

Nonetheless, some of you may decide to keep using anti-bacterial soaps and gels. Hey, we don’t judge. But allow us to present our second point – there’s a lot of bad stuff in the traditional products. The old-standby, Purell, gets a moderate hazard rating from Skin Deep. It contains ingredients linked to cancer, neurotoxicity, developmental toxicity and more. Many anti-bacterial products contain triclosan, which does most of the germ-slaying. Skin Deep rates this a high hazard due to various dangers. And the National Resources Defense Council recently filed a lawsuit against the FDA over triclosan and triclocarbon.

So if you’re going to buy anti-bacterial products, make sure they are free of triclosan – and while you’re reading labels, feel free to kick out toxic fragrances, alcohol, and parabens as well.

So what to buy? Luckily, there is a safer solution on the market. CleanWell’s All-Natural Antibacterial Foaming Handsoap gets a very low hazard rating from Skin Deep. The product has a nice, light texture and a really pleasant natural scent. CleanWell offers the only all-natural antimicrobial on the market that is proven to kill 99.9 percent of all germs. (Apparently, it’s all in the thyme.) And they are sans tricoslan and other nefarious ingredients like benzalkonium chloride (linked to asthma among others,) alcohol, bleach and ammonia. It is also biodegradable and paraben free.

And the best bet? Considering just sticking to plain natural soap and water. It’s worked for centuries and who knows – it might even throw those mutant one percent bacteria off the chase.

FTC Compliant

Image: totalaldo

The post What’s the Deal with Anti-Bacterial Soap? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Getting Purelled is the growing phenomenon of sanitizing one’s germ-infested mitts with the alcohol-based, Johnson & Johnson product known as Purell.

What’s in the name, William Safire students might ask?

Pure, I imagine, denotes the opposite of tainted, which in flu terms translates into ralphing, the runs and the unpleasant sensation of having been poisoned by Satan. Elle is French for she, as in, she is cruel that H1N1 Virus, widespread in 47 states now. Elle also is a swank Fifties ad-on, like ette for dinette. It sounds real classy.

I first heard the term the other day after ordering my teenage daughter to wash her hands after school. She’s a nail biter, more susceptible than most.

“I just got purelled,” she explained, exhibiting a jellyfish-like, residue bubble in her palm, which she kept afloat because she was undoubtedly fascinated by its staying power.  She has been studying chemistry in school. And I believe pathogen is one of her SAT terms.

Sydney and her peers happily take advantage of the economy, vat-sized, plastic dispensers of the waterless germ fighter stationed in every nook and cranny of her school, from the bathrooms to the cafeteria, library and gym.

At the campus’s recent Grandparents Day buffet breakfast, I watched an elderly dude mistake the jug O’Purell for carbonated water, carelessly pumping a shot into his cup with a puzzled visage. I gently intervened to set him straight. “You don’t want to drink that, Mister.”

The sanitizer, albeit refreshing upon contact with the skin, is not desirable as a beverage, no matter how much the Dunder Mifflinaholic, Meredith Baxter, of The Office fame ingests it for its alcohol content.

Getting purelled sounds ironically similar to getting paroled. In fact, a link exists when you consider hand purifying might prevent weeks off from school, a form of prison for parents who can’t do squat during the duration of the relatively mild but ubiquitously feared illness. I know as a mom who recently emerged from the trenches with her Swine Flu-infected youngest.

“Mommy, I’m bored! Mommy, stop working, I’m bored! ” I call it Purell hell.

In an aggressive no-tolerance approach, our school armed itself with endless stockpiles of the weapon at the beginning of the year hoping it might slow what it cannot prevent. While the CDC says there are  plenty of the H1N1 vaccines to go around, many parents apparently prefer that surefire killer, Purell.

“I definitely think it has slowed down the spread since contact between these kids is so constant, maybe each child is contacting 20 others throughout the day,”  says Dr. David Abusch-Magder, the head of middle school at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco.

At least the school, which has an impressive recycling and composting program, is using refillable containers. If you must invest is this much plastic, you might as well maximize its shelf life.

In addition to schools,  I’ve spotted the dispensers just about everywhere these days, from Trader Joe’s checkout counters to business offices, exercise studios and even in the cup holder of my own car.  The truth is there is no place to avoid the risk of contamination. Many organisms continue to thrive in my car despite the Purell.

Another truth is that we are creating a population of Purelled humans immune to the small percentage of bacteria resistant to the liquid. Bacteria that don’t die simply reproduce.

Let’s just hope we can conceive of  a way to upcycle all of those plastic dispensers once we are restored.

This is the latest installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Top image: The Local

Image One:Upyernoz

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