back to article Irish researchers sweep smartphones clear of super bugs

A team of Irish scientists has developed a way to neutralise that threatening sump of biological mayhem you just can’t leave home without - the mobile phone. Happily the nano-technology can also be turned on to lesser sources of harmful bacteria such as children’s toys, kitchen worktops, TV remotes and toilet. A team led by …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Step aside Gorilla glass

    > If that wasn’t appealing enough, the result is a surface that is harder than the original glass or ceramic, as well as transparent and scratch resistant.

    Step aside Gorilla Glass, now we have bug-killing glass... Bugzilla Glass.

    I should trademark the name.. oh wait.

  2. Chris Evans

    Sounds very promising!

    I just hope they don't find a gotcha to stop commercial implementation.

    I wonder what other usages there are apart from phones and tablets!

    Pity no time scales for practical usage were given.

  3. x 7

    imagine......you'd never have to wash up after dinner.

    Or ever clean the toilet

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Um, you normally wash up before dinner.

      If you have to wash up after, it's an entirely different set of issues.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Some subtle idiomatic language differences exemplified here.

        We did in the past wash up after dinner, nowadays we just load the dishwasher and it does it for us.

  4. Whitter
    Meh

    A la les chickens

    In mass-market use, won't this just lead to yet more highly-resistant bacteriological strains evolving?

    1. Chris Evans

      Re: A la les chickens

      "won't this just lead to yet more highly-resistant bacteriological strains evolving?"

      Not necessarily. Bacteria will always try and adapt to survive but they don't always do so. I'm thinking of Silver, its antibacterial properties don't seem to have diminished over hundreds of years!

      1. tony2heads

        Re: A la les chickens

        If I remember correctly these nano-surfaces basically act like a series of spikes that puncture the cell walls of the bacteria- it is a physical rather than a chemical attack.

      2. Tony Haines

        Re: A la les chickens

        //. Bacteria will always try and adapt to survive but they don't always do so. I'm thinking of Silver, its antibacterial properties don't seem to have diminished over hundreds of years! //

        Actually, bacterial silver resistance exists. Typing those words into google gives a long list of abstracts and similar. The top one is titled: "Bacterial silver resistance: molecular biology and uses and misuses of silver compounds."

        The thing about resistance is that it may come with a cost. When that is significant, resistant bacteria will be broadly restricted to places where the toxin is likely to be encountered.

        This isn't quite as encouraging as you might think, though, because the little buggers can pass resistance around, and some resistance is likely to remain somewhere in the population. This means even if you stop using the antibiotic (or antiseptic) for a few years, if you start using it again the resistance get back up to high levels quite quickly.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: A la les chickens

          Rapid evolution tends to encourage frequent mutation. As a reault, bacteria can evolve resistances to all sorts of things once thought impossible. For example, some bacteria cluster together and develop biofilms that allow them to survive exposure to chlorine bleach. I would think physical spikes can be resisted with a similar technique, only physically hardened rather than chemically hardened. Even that recent breakthrough, quorum-sensing disruption (quorum sensing is part of the biofilm technique) can be evolved against (apparently by using different signal molecules between groups of bacteria).

          1. DocJames
            Coat

            Re: A la les chickens

            Resistance usually comes at a fitness cost. That's why silver resistance is not widespread despite having developed: it requires significant physical changes. OTOH, the current "superbugs" are resistant to many antibiotics through enzymes, which can happily be switched on and off as required. This means (effectively) no evolutionary cost when in a non-antibiotic environment, and survival when in an antibiotic environment.

            More pertinently, most of us have gut flora over the skin of our lower limbs. Just because you can swab an item and find bacteria doesn't mean that you need to panic.

            It's the white one

            1. Charles 9

              Re: A la les chickens

              The key word being "usually". The moment a bacterial mutation emerges that conveys silver resistance (perhaps by an altered biofilm structure) without a heavy adaptation cost, selective pressure is going to make it the new king of the bacterial roost. And given the rapid turnover rate of bacteria, we have to work on the assumption that this is a question of "when," not "if".

              1. DocJames

                Re: A la les chickens

                Not really. It is implausible that such a situation will ever arise - not impossible but unlikely enough that we don't need to worry about it. Given the limited uses that we can manage for silver as an antimicrobial, there is relatively little selection pressure compared to the antimicrobial drugs we slosh around with abandon.

                Biofilms are complex enough; I don't think bacteria will manage to adapt an entirely new, silver resistant form which happens to have almost no fitness cost. At least, not in the lifetime of this universe. If we could just figure out how to treat biofilms in the first place that would be an advance. (And understand a bit more about all the bacterial signalling switch between planktonic and biofilm forms.)

                1. Charles 9

                  Re: A la les chickens

                  Haven't you heard all the news about silver nanoparticles lately? And one of the uses they've found for it is to penetrate biofilms. I suspect we'll be seeing more of these in the near future, meaning I think we'll be seeing selective pressure on them eventually.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does that mean we will be able to send off the B Arc without fear of the consequences?

    1. Chemical Bob
      Headmaster

      Re: the B Arc

      Don't go off on a tangent, now...

  6. Semtex451
    Windows

    "After initially developing the material for ceramics, they’ve now cracked the issue of applying it to glass"

    I thought glass was a ceramic - Pedants please re educate me.

    1. Charles 9

      A glass is its own kind of substance, primarily a solid but with no crystalline structure (most solids have a structure). As a result, it doesn't behave like your average solid (ceramics are structured solids) and therefore has unique properties that can be exploited depending on its composition.

  7. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    Let me get this straight.....

    We have here a team of scientists.

    Who are also telephone sanitisers.

    Which Ark do they go on then?

  8. Schultz
    Facepalm

    Antibacterial nonsense

    You carry more bacterial cells than human cells in your body. Wash your hands before dinner and stop worrying about your phone. Oh, and while we are at it, when did you last put your keyboard through the dishwasher?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Antibacterial nonsense

      I don't know about the dishwasher, but I have meticulously cleaned my keyboard recently, including getting under the keys and wiping everything down with 91% isopropanol.

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