43 ms·
Sunshine Helps Kill Germs Indoors
- mrtweetyhack 8y agoSunshine also mutates germs. The ones that don't get killed mutate and may become even stronger. Long live the germs!
- aidenn0 8y agoI wonder if the high-E glass used in new construction affects this.
- hprotagonist 8y agoIn a similar vein, you can get even porous dishware remarkably clean by scrubbing them out with salt and letting them bake in direct light for a while. This works reasonably welly while car-camping or situations where doing dishes is annoying, or water is scarce but sunlight's plentiful. direct sunlight for baking off mold and mildew and bleaching whites are other old but effective tricks.
- tralarpa 8y ago> bleaching whites This only works on a lawn, doesn't it? The combination of grass, sun and water produces hydrogen peroxide.
- thevardanian 8y agoPeople used wash their dishes with the ash from the stove. It acts both as an abrasive, and an absorbent.
- Double_a_92 8y agoAlso ash has a very basic pH value.
- divbyzer0 8y agoSoap was traditionally made from the ashes of hardwoods combined with rain water (higher nitrogen content). https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Ash-Soap https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Ash-Soap
- clumsysmurf 8y agoDoes anyone have a recommendation for a commercial product that can disinfect a room with UV? Something like a more scaled down version of what is used in hospitals. I'd use it at home, and when staying in a hotel room.
- userbinator 8y agoA UVC lamp will work very well for that, just make sure nothing you want to remain alive is in the same room when it's on, because the UV is just as effective at killing your cells as it is bacteria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germicidal_lamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germicidal_lamp
- olliej 8y agoThere goes my idea of a room sized tanning booth :)
- gukov 8y agoThere are air purifiers that pass the air through a built-in UV lamp.
- namibj 8y agoE27 UVC lamps, basically in this case a long CFL with proper UV quartz glass, but without the fluorescent coating, seem to be popular in china to be screwed into the ceiling. See biglive about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m0TQjBRcFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m0TQjBRcFo
- eplanit 8y agoSo the statement "sunlight is the best disinfectant"[1] is indeed true, both literally and metaphorically. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfectant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfec...
- modzu 8y agoc.f: the concept of prana; and the belief that you can sustain yourself on sunshine alone
- scotty79 8y agoPeople starved themselves to death believing a version of that.
- modzu 8y agodarwin awards
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- newsbinator 8y agoIt seems counterintuitive to believe that a thing you evolved not to do is a thing you can do. It'd be like training yourself to breathe underwater like a fish. Or training yourself to molt like a snake. You're simply not designed with the right hardware for the task, not matter how much "practice" you get. Amazing how people can convince themselves otherwise.
- modzu 8y agoyou didn't evolve "to do" anything. that's teleology.
- newsbinator 8y agoI mentioned things we evolved not to do, which obviously wouldn't fly in a biology paper, but perhaps gets across "things we lack the evolution-provided hardware to do".
- nmridul 8y agoI wonder why drying clothes in Sunlight is avoided in western countries. Even in Summer, i don't see people hanging clothes outside in US. While this is the norm in Asia.
- askvictor 8y agoPossibly to do with sunlight causing fading? Hanging clothes outside is pretty common in Australia which is a so-called Western country (and inventor of the Hill's Hoist for this very purpose). Other than the US, the rest of the Western world is pretty much Europe, which gets enough rain and short days in winter that they have other systems (i.e. clothes driers) that are probably convenient to use in summer too. Also, electric driers cost money to buy and run, which developed countries have a lot more of.
- jklehm 8y agoIn addition to killing germs the UV is breaking down the fabric and fading the colors.
- mrpopo 8y agoUV breaking down the fabric, maybe? Certainly less fast than clothes driers. Random google search result comparing wear-and-tear of line-dried and tumbler-dried clothes : https://www.reviewed.com/science/how-dryers-destroy-your-clothes https://www.reviewed.com/science/how-dryers-destroy-your-clo...
- peterwwillis 8y agoWell it depends on what part of the "West" you mean. Lots of people still hang clothes out to dry in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, etc. In the USA, we don't hang clothes out because we changed our cultural norms with the introduction of convenience machines. Once air conditioning became affordable, we all bought it. Same for refrigerators, dish washers, garbage disposals, washing machines, and of course dryers. Having a machine to do your work for you was seen as a middle-class status symbol, in addition to relieving housework. Once line-drying became passé, people began to dislike the sight of line-dried clothes (it reminded them of being lower-class) and so was now "unsightly". Neighborhood association bylaws were passed to ban line-drying completely, and many apartment buildings also banned the practice. So now around 80% of homes in the USA have a washer and dryer, and people in apartments use laundromats or apartment facilities. This article from the BBC mentions the millions of U.S. homeowners who were banned from using clotheslines: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11417677 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11417677
- agumonkey 8y agoRead that a few months ago. I let some fruits out in the open, they stayed 'mint' for weeks. While in my house, after one week I'd see rot starting and mold showing its head.
- jacobush 8y agoCould also be temperature and humidity etc.
- agumonkey 8y agoCould be but I don't think it was the case. Unless it a very sensitive, there wasn't a lot of difference, it was summer, house was open, low humidity if at all.
- Uberphallus 8y agoStill, objects in sunlight are significantly hotter than air temperature, and molds have pretty strong requirements for developing, temperature wise.
- antnisp 8y agoNot only should not all fruit be stored in the fridge, but some, like tomatoes and bananas, need room temperature to develop their flavour.
- athenot 8y agoThis could also be air circulation. Most ripening fruits give off ethylene gas, which has the effect of speeding ripening in a feedback loop. That's where the expression "a bad apple spoils the barrel" comes from. But the extra bacteria is indeed more probable, especially if you notice that the kind of mold growing on the in-house fruit appears to be different than the ones left outside.
- manmal 8y agoWe use a steam-cleaning device (looks like a small vacuum cleaner) at home and I swear we get sick less often if we use it regularly. It supposedly kills over 99% of all kinds of pathogens. Not sure if it creates resistant strains, but I guess such high temperatures are difficult to adapt to.
- diminish 8y agodo u stay home most of the tıme? like one family member in public (transportation) usually is enough to bring the recent fashion of viruses.
- manmal 8y agoI don't, but my wife currently, and ~1 kid on average. It's a germ breeding ground :)
- smhost 8y agothinking about this makes me wonder whether we have any symbiosis with bacteria outside of our bodies
- Double_a_92 8y agoKilling 99% of everything is not very good if you have young children. It can lead to allergies, if their immune system can't train on harmless bacteria.
- comboy 8y agoFrom what I've heard in China UV boxes for dishes sterilization are more popular than dishwashers.
- Double_a_92 8y agoThey probably aren't a direct competitor to dishwashers though. You would still need to remove food rests and other gunk from the dishes.
- mrarjen 8y agoApparently the dishwashers aren't great for bowls and other dishes used primarily in China. Plus they love to wash dishes with boiling hot water.
- mobilemidget 8y agoNow I wonder why dishwashers don't have UV light in their washing cycle. runs to patent office
- spyder 8y agohttps://newatlas.com/uv-lamp-reduces-lg-dishwasher-germs/12720/ https://newatlas.com/uv-lamp-reduces-lg-dishwasher-germs/127...
- dalore 8y agohttps://gizmodo.com/5995220/this-ultraviolet-lamp-keeps-your-dishwasher-clean-no-matter-how-dirty-the-dishes https://gizmodo.com/5995220/this-ultraviolet-lamp-keeps-your...
- moviuro 8y agoGDPR/tracking bypass: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=658335490 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=658335490
- tobyhinloopen 8y agoData protection cookies? What are these?
- tartoran 8y agoIn Eastern Europe pillows, bedsheets and blankets are put on the windowsill every morning for airing. It is also a customary thing to keep windows open for a couple of hours at least, every day. I was surprised that is not the norm in the US for example. It's the AC that is always blasting instead
- aclave1 8y agoIt's very hot in the US. Today at 2pm the temperature where I live will be around 29 degrees celcius. I googled ukraine's weather right now and it's 14C over there.
- Grazester 8y agoI thought you were going to say 35 degrees(Arizona, Nevada, Texas?) but you said 29? Where I am from that's a nice to normal day.
- aclave1 8y agoI live in louisiana, it's actually really nice today compared to most days since we're in that nice 3 days of fall season. I was just giving an example of why AC is always blasting here. Your comment backs up my point that it's HOT in the USA
- fhood 8y agoNot going to argue with you about using AC in Louisiana. I think a lot of people just don't understand how fucking hot and unpleasant it gets in the southern states during summer.
- selimthegrim 8y agoI invite all these guys to live in a shotgun in Algiers (NOLA) without central air or window units for the summer and see how long they last.
- 8y ago
- rhacker 8y agoI once dried something outside. It ended up being in half shade half sun. When I checked on it a couple hours later, there was a distinct fading line where the sun/shade line had travelled. The sun side was completely faded.
- jdlyga 8y agoNext you're going to tell me drafty windows will give me a cold.
- amatecha 8y agoThere have been quite a number of recent studies into the use of light for medical/health purposes -- for example, using blue light for its antimicrobial effects[0], or various wavelengths of light for other healing effects[1,2]. Use of LED light for this purpose is often covered by insurance and has been developed & used by NASA[3]. Anecdotally, a family member of mine has one of those "led light therapy" systems[4]. Initially he was going to a local clinic to use one and ended up buying one of the packages for himself. I have seen person after person experience shockingly beneficial effects from using them (like people are saying "this is the first time I've slept without pain medication in years". From putting a pad covered in bright LEDs on them for 40 minutes. People are so skeptical, then suddenly their chronic pain issue is mitigated by simply sitting there. 0: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3438385/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3438385/ 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126803/ 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3799034/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3799034/ 3: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/heals.html https://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/heals.html 4: https://www.balancedlivingllc.com/light-therapy.html https://www.balancedlivingllc.com/light-therapy.html
- toomuchtodo 8y agoCareful with the blue light, it can be toxic to the retina. Tilt towards warmer spectrum whenever possible. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0194218 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- amatecha 8y agoYeah, that's right. Normally you use the infrared, but the blue are still included and the instructions usually specify exactly how to use those properly/safely :)
- mclightning 8y agothis explains a lot :D we have an old saying in Turkish; "A home where the sun do not visit, gets a doctor's visit"