Office Germs: Safe for Work

The Editors of Office Product Reviews at Best Choice Reviews decided to research the topic of:

SAFE FOR WORK?

Keeping clean and healthy in the office may be harder than you think.

• 1 in 3 office workers have witnessed co-workers leaving restrooms without washing their hands.
• 53% of Americans don't wash their hands after exchanging money.
• The average person touches 300 surfaces every 30 minutes, exposing themselves to 840,000 germs.

Diligent washing, wiping and sanitizing can help office professionals reduce their rates of cold and flu by as much as 80%.

• 72% of Americans typically go to work when they are sick.
• 55% of workers say they feel guilty when they call in sick.
• 78% of workers say they wash their hands often.
• 15% of workers avoid shaking hands with people to avoid germs.
• 3% skip meetings where sick people are in attendance.

Just how dirty is my office?

Researchers swabbed about 5,000 surfaces in office buildings, including law firms, insurance companies, healthcare offices, call centers and factories. The swabs were analyzed with a device that measures adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is a molecule found in all animal, vegetable, bacteria, yeast and mold cells.

High ATP levels are present in food or other organic residues left on surfaces. The more ATP found on a surface, the more likely it's flourishing with bacteria and viruses. An ATP reading of over 100 suggests a surface could use a scrub-down. Readings of 300 or higher are considered officially dirty and at high risk for spreading illness.

ATP counts of 300 or higher

• 75% of break room sink faucet handles
• 48% of microwave door handles
• 27% of keyboards
• 26% of refrigerator door handles
• 23% of water fountain buttons
• 21% of vending machine buttons
• ATP counts of 100 or higher
• 91% of break room sink faucet handles
• 80% of microwave door handles
• 69% of keyboards
• 69% of refrigerator door handles
• 53% of water fountain buttons
• 51% of all computer mice
• 51% of all desk phones
• 48% of all coffee pots and dispensers
• 43% of vending machine buttons

Office hygiene tips

• Keep hand sanitizer at your desk and use it immediately after every meeting or conference.
• Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer when you get to work, especially after riding mass transit, such as trains or buses.
• Use disinfectant wipes to clean your desk at least once a day.
• Keep hand sanitizer in the break room to reinforce hand hygiene.

The 5 Oddest Ways Technology is Aiding Peculiar Industries

1. DNA Testing and Infidelity

For couples all over the world that may be having relationship troubles, the possibility of infidelity by their significant other is a potentially serious problem. To combat this nasty relationship breaker, all sorts of solutions commonly get proposed, ranging from counseling to private investigators who spy on travelling husbands or wives.

However, at least one company, called Infidelity Testing, is offering a pretty odd way of finding out if your significant other is cheating on you, by using the highly precise science of DNA testing. Simply send in your partner's dirty underwear to their laboratories, and wait for them to do a careful multi-point scan of the fabric for hard to remove traces of third party genetic material that would have no easy way of finding its way to such an intimate place.

2. Cyborg....…Rats and Rescue Services

We've all heard of rescue dogs using their superman noses to detect survivors under the rubble of bomb or earthquake ruined buildings and other places. We're even getting pretty used to naval rescue services training dolphins or sea lions in the fine art of detecting underwater weapons and lost divers with the aid of specialized equipment mounted to their backs. However, one even more radically surprising new trend that's being used by scientists at DARPA and the University of Florida involves using rats as detection animals for disaster scenarios.

Since the flexible little rodents naturally spend their time digging and burrowing through tight space, experimental trials have fitted them with little backpacks that transmit olfactory signals to human supervisors, telling them when the animal has discovered a trapped survivor buried under rubble.

3. UltraSonic Waves that Repel Birds

Many people, from municipal officials to private homeowners and farmers, have all had serious problems with birds on their infrastructure sometimes even very serious problems. From covering public parks in white feces to destroying crops and stealing food, large packs of birds like seagulls, crows and pigeons can become a serious bloody nuisance that can apparently be downright hard to get rid of without the temptation to daily use of flamethrowers.

Unless of course you get creative and think outside the box about dealing with warms of these flying avian rats of the sky. This is where companies like www.Bird-x.com come into the picture. Their interesting technology uses repeating high powered blasts of sonic or even ultrasonic sound waves to permanently scare birds off any public or private place where the machinery that causes these sound waves is installed. The sonic repellers create human audible sounds like predator bird cries and other scary noises to clear an area, while the ultrasonic version of the repellers is designed for spaces with human presence and thus relies on sound that we can't hear but which badly annoys destructive avians.

4. Aluminum as Bullet Proof Armor

When most of us think of Aluminum, we just associate it with flimsy bike frames, flimsy car frames and maybe decorative metal features in buildings. The keyword here is flimsy, and the last thing we'd ever associate with this soft, light metal is hardcore vehicle ballistic armor that's designed to withstand direct hits from toys like a 50 caliber machine gun.

But, believe it or not, this is exactly what aluminum can be used for….. a bullet stopping vehicle window glass. If this seems crazy, the idea that a soft completely opaque metal can suddenly double as a transparent, ultra hard ballistic window replacement in armored cars, then you need to understand that aluminum, when mixed with nitrogen and oxygen into a powder, can then be superheated and super compressed to create a clear, smooth glass-like substance that's several times stronger than even the best ballistic glass or plastic mix.

5. NASA Nano Tech Keeps the Hairstyling Industry Sanitary

The scientists at NASA have had to get extraordinarily creative in making up substance related technologies that keep their astronauts safe and hygienic in orbital space while not causing zero G related problems. One such issue involved keeping surfaces clean without using liquid disinfectants, which would simply form into floating droplets and drift all over the place. Thus, the engineers at NASA developed a substance that was filled extremely small microscopic silver particles which could be applied to surfaces without drifting away; silver, as many medical professionals know, happens to be antimicrobial by nature.

Before long, a hair care company owner by the name of Farouk Shami had heard of this development at a nanotechnology conference and soon started applying it to the hair styling industry by coating styling tools with a self-disinfecting layer of silver nano particles.

Syphilis

Syphilis is another sexually transmitted disease. It can be transmitted from an infected sex organ to an open cut in the skin of another person. It usually penetrates the moist mucous membranes of the mouth, the vagina, and the penis urethra, through which urine passes from the bladder to the outside.

Symptoms
If Syphilis if not treated, it can occur in three stages. The symptoms are slow to appear usually 10 -90 days after exposure.

The first stage can occur any time between two to four weeks after infection has occurred. A painless ulcer develops at this site most of the time. The ulcer starts as a red spot, turns into a pimple, which ulcerates, forming a sore. The ulcer is usually found on the genitals or anus, but can appear on any part of the skin, including the mouth. It usually heals in 4-6 weeks, leaving a thin scar. During this period the bacterium is circulating in the blood throughout the body.

The second stage appears one to six months after the ulcer heals, you feel generally ill, you have a fever and a headache and lose your appetite. The glands in your neck, armpit and groin may swell. Most people develop a skin rash that does not itch. The spots appear on the palms of the hands and the bottom of the feet.

The symptoms usually last three to six months. There is what you call a latent period where there are no apparent symptoms, and the carrier is no longer contagious. However, the organism is working itself into the host's tissues. There are 50 to 70 percent of the carriers that can live the rest of their lives in this stage, without passing into the syphilis stage. MORE PICTURES

The last stage is the serious stage. It flares up without warning. It can cause heart problems, eye problems, brain and spinal cord damage, with a high probability of paralysis, insanity, blindness or death.

Treatment
Treatment is by penicillin injection, or a two-week regimen of tetracycline, which is the standard treatment for syphilis. All stages of syphilis are treatable and can be stopped.

Transmission
The most common form of transmission is through sexual intercourse. Syphilis can also be acquired by blood transfusion or from passed from an infected mother to her fetus.

Testing
The disease is detected by a blood test.