This Computer Keyboard Tells You When It Needs to be Cleaned
We've written about the microscopic horrors infesting your keyboard before -- bacteria can grow at levels five times worst than found on a toilet seat -- and researchers in the UK have developed a new keyboard that they hope will cut down on deadly drug-resistant staph infections among patients.
On average, more than 8,000 people die each year from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that was contracted while being treated for something else in a hospital. Along with taking other measures to clean up the hospital environment to fight infection, British researchers at the University College London Hospital have created the Medigenic keyboard, an easy-to-clean, flat silicone keyboard that will tell you when it needs to be cleaned (usually at 12 hour intervals).
Why spend time and money developing a new keyboard? Doctors and nurses already wash their hands between touching patients, but keyboards are shared by many people and are actually a big source of cross-contamination. Researchers found that many of the hospital's keyboards contained more than 150 times the recommended safe level of bacteria. Most people only clean their keyboards with compressed air -- if at all -- which won't kill the bacteria the dirty keys are harboring.
No word yet on a price, but the Medigenic Keyboard is manufactured by Advanced Input Systems, and the clean device sounds like the perfect gift for germaphobe friends, preschool teachers, and OCD sufferers alike. [Source: Daily Mail]
