Biofilm. Bang? It is easy!

We regularly scare microbes comparative figures: how many of them per square inch.
In mid-pure English family toilet on the square is 49 bacilli on computer mouse - 1700 on the keys - 3295, on the desktop in the office, say here on the BBC on-Sea, on average - 21 thousand, and on the handset 25 thousand. Conclusion - beware of the machine! But the main thing is not the number - and harmfulness.
On a kitchen sponge or cloth, to 10,000 square inch of infectious microbes E-coli. By themselves, individually, they are, perhaps, not so dangerous, but in a team ...
I want to quote a piece of paper in the journal "Knowledge - force": "Since the mid-1990s in the war against microbes, scientists used the latest intelligence agent - laser microscope. So for the first time opened the true microbial life in all its diversity and everyday life. "

According to the American microbiologist William Kostertona, the picture seen them in a laser microscope, reminiscent of "Manhattan at night when you fly to him on the plane." In the midst of a viscous bacterial film rose "skyscrapers" of microbes, is 200 micrometers in height (normal size of bacteria - 1-10 micrometers).

From house to house for a whole network of canals fed smoothly enzymes, nutrients and oxygen molecules derived wastes microbes. Whole hordes of tiny organisms - bacteria, protozoa, viruses - roamed the streets of this "metropolis" and devouring everything they come across. In this "city" met and rare "foreigners" - worms, fungi, algae, tiny mites and insect larvae.

These colonies, called "biofilms", became detect everywhere: on the rocks and reefs, plants and monuments, on the walls of water pipes and pieces of glass lenses.

Especially they have taken root in medical devices: artificial heart valves and hip joints, prostheses and catheters are often teeming with bacteria colonies. Many hospital patients develop inflammation - they suffer from "hospital infections."

The bacteria live in colonies. So, they need to somehow communicate with each other. It turned out to count bacteria relatives using a communication system - the so-called Quorum sensing.

Its quorum bacteria determined by chemical means, highlighting the signaling substances - pheromones. Their concentrations are measured by a specific receptor. While pheromones little - so little and microbes, and work together it is unprofitable, this receptor is inactive.

But chemical news fly one after another. As soon as "quorum" is reached, the receptor is activated, and the whole colony together release a toxin from which a person becomes ill. "

What to do? There is a simple recipe - what to do with a kitchen sponge or cloth. It turns out that the dishwasher, even in hot mode, do not kill all the germs.

If you want to make this unfortunate sterile sponge-cloth, it should simply put in the microwave.

Two minutes of radiation kill peddler of infection by 99 percent.

The question arises - what happens during those two minutes of microwave food?

But this - the crown for another lecture.
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