Scientists Put an End To Smelly Socks 238
athe!st writes "A new anti-microbial treatment that can make clothing — including smelly socks — permanently germ-free has been developed by US scientists. In a paper published in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, Dr Jason Locklin and his colleagues state that the treatment kills a wide range of dangerous pathogens, including staph, strep, E. coli, pseudomonas and acinetobacter."
Re:Great... (Score:4, Informative)
depends on how it works.
For example, alcohol based hand sanitizers can not be a vector for a 'resistant' germ.
Yes, Great... (Score:3, Informative)
What makes you think microbes cannot be resistant to alcohol? Some microbes literally shit alcohol.
Unicellular life has a much easier time evolving than we do. Lining up 3 trillion cells to work together at all amazes me, & I'm doing that right now!
Re:Only socks? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to update your talking points. Bedbugs were either in the process or already resistant to DDT in many areas.
Please see:
DDT resistance: once more, with tables and sources [newyorkvsbedbugs.org]
How it works (Score:5, Informative)
I normally don't post on slashdot, but since this is related to my field (I am a chemist) and there have been a lot of comments about how bad this must be because of the possibility of building resistance, I felt obligated to clarify this after looking into it.
As far as anti-microbial substances work, this is about as simple as it gets. All bacteria have cell membranes consisting of a lipid bilayer - it's basically two layers of negatively-charged water-loving stuff attached to a fatty part in the middle that stays away from water. This treatment uses a polymer that can pass through the cell membrane, with positively-charged bits making it inside the membrane. The positively-charged parts on the polymer attract the negatively-charged parts on the membrane and cause it to come apart enough for the cell to die.
Many other antibiotics are based on small molecules that interrupting some metabolic process of bacteria. Bacteria develop resistance by making enzymes that will break down these small molecules once inside the cell. This new method attacks the outside of the cell directly, not something inside the cell. It wouldn't be impossible for bacteria to develop immunity to this, but it would be comparably very improbable.
Re:Yes, Great... (Score:5, Informative)
Au contraire!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambic [wikipedia.org]