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Can Farting Contaminate Sterile Enviroments
"It all started with an enquiry from a nurse," Dr Karl
Kruszelnicki told listeners to his science phone-in show on
the Triple J radio station in Brisbane. "She wanted to know
whether she was contaminating the operating theatre she
worked in by quietly farting in the sterile environment
during operations, and I realised that I didn't know. But I
was determined to find out." Dr Kruszelnicki then described
the method by which he had established whether human flatus
was germ-laden, or merely malodorous. "I contacted Luke
Tennent, a microbiologist in Canberra, and together we
devised an experiment. He asked a colleague to break wind
directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of five
centimetres, first fully clothed, then with his trousers
down. Then he observed what happened. Overnight, the second
Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria
that are usually only found in the gut and on the skin. But
the flatus which had passed through clothing caused no
bacteria to sprout, which suggests that clothing acts as a
filter. "Our deduction is that the enteric zone in the
second Petri dish was caused by the flatus itself, and the
splatter ring around that was caused by the sheer velocity
of the fart, which blew skin bacteria from the cheeks and
blasted it onto the dish. It seems, therefore, that flatus
can cause infection if the emitter is naked, but not if he
or she is clothed. But the results of the experiment should
not be considered alarming, because neither type of
bacterium is harmful. In fact, they're similar to the
'friendly' bacteria found in yoghurt. "Our final
conclusion? Don't fart naked near food. Alright, it's not
rocket science. But then again, maybe it is?" (Canberra
Times, 17/7/01. Spotter: Michael Doyle)
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