What the Dust in Your House Says About You | Hacker News Reader

What the Dust in Your House Says About You

newyorker.com

22 pointsd_a_robson10 comments

Wow, short article but full of so much fascinating and somewhat disturbing content!

I found this a particularly uncomfortable thought:

    In a troubling discovery, Dunn and his colleagues learned that,
    from a microbiological perspective, toilet seats and
    pillowcases look strikingly similar.

And unfortunately I don't know how to un-read.

Guess I'll just have to resort to changing my pillow cases a few times a week

grin

My takeaway from that was a toilet seat makes for an OK headrest if nothing else is available :-)

+1 Insightful

That way of looking at it actually makes me feel so much better. Thanks for the quick reversal of perspective steve19!

Just consider the study that compared the biomes of the average toilet and the average kitchen sink, which found the sink much more pathogenic.

what i did was buy a huge pack of pillowcases (apparently for hotels) from amazon. i change them nearly every night. it's more comfortable and my skin has improved.

Did anyone else read this and have the sudden urge to steam clean their entire apartment?

I designed my computer case to pull massive quantities of air through a furnace filter so my apartment is relatively dust-free...

So at least not me.

Doesn't really bother me. Every year during Lent I hear, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." So I figure my house and I are slowly fulfilling biblical prophecy.

No but I heard that computer manufacturing is rated in dust particles per billion air molecules.

That seems to be a common reaction to this sort of knowledge. My guess is the mental model many people have for “microorganisms on you” is “icky parasites on you”, but the uncreepy reality is closer to just “you”.

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