The ubiquitous toilet seat
Consumer group WHICH said tests at its London offices found some computer keyboards carry greater numbers of harmful bacteria than a toilet seat.
Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, WHICH said four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office's toilet seats. A microbiologist found the worst keyboard to be so dirty he ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned. The researcher who conducted the tests warned that it would be quite possible to pick up colds or even gastroenteritis from using a shared keyboard. The Daily Mail rather cleverly dubbed this ailment "Qwerty Tummy".
It is not the first time that the lid has been lifted on the toilet seat in the name of research, and keyboards are not the only technology to be compared unfavourably with them. Mobile phones can also be a breeding ground for bugs, are held closer to the mouth and nose, and are kept in warm dark pockets, an ideal environment for many bacteria. When a sample of phones was tested in 2006, the researcher said of one phone, "This is the dirtiest phone I have ever tested. He has somewhere between 10 and 50 million bacteria on his phone. If there is ever a new life form on this planet, it will be on this phone."
16th May 2008