• Question: how much bacteria is on a phone,money and headphones

    Asked by ferrarimad to Lena on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Lena Ciric

      Lena Ciric answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Hiya.
      Well. I can’t tell you exact numbers. Lots of different bacteria have been found on phones, money and headphones. They even found E.coli (normally found in your poo) on 1 in 6 mobile phones. Yuk! I expect some people aren’t washing their hands…

      I’ll do an experiment for you. I’m going to swab my phone, a pound coin and one of my headphones and grow the bacteria on some plates tonight. I’ll count them tomorrow and let you know what I find!

Comments

  • Photo: Lena

    Lena commented on :

    I have an answer for you. The money has the most bacteria on it. I collected all the bacteria on my phone (iPhone), a 50 p piece and one of my earphones. I also worked out the surface area of all these objects as we want to know the number of bacteria per cm2 so we can make a comparison.

    The results show that both the phone and the earphone have about 30 bacteria per cm2, but the money has 350 per cm2. Over ten times more! The moral of the story is – wash your hands after handling money!

    I’ve uploaded some photos of the agar plates I grew the bacteria on. Remember that these show the number of bacteria for the entire object rather than per cm2. Have a look at the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25515957@N07/sets/72157629218584076/

  • Photo: tomalie

    tomalie commented on :

    Great question!xxx