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Science

Sweat-Eating Bacteria to Live in Your Clothes 108

Posted by michael from the strong-enough-for-a-man-but-made-for-a-woman dept.
amyaimee writes: "Perfect for you hygiene-challenged computer geeks (you know who you are): New Scientist reports on a new clothing made of milkweed containing a special strain of e. coli designed to feed on human sweat and the proteins that cause B.O. Alex Lightman of Charmed Technology quips, "I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them, but if they were selected to convert my sweat into sweet-smelling pheromones, that would be great," he says."
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Sweat-Eating Bacteria to Live in Your Clothes More

Sweat-Eating Bacteria to Live in Your Clothes

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  • You still did not explain how this removes the scambled eggs from the front of my sweater.
  • What's wrong with washing? What's so terrible about having a nice invigorating shower or lying relaxing in the bath for half an hour?
    What's wrong with soap and deodorant, and why is washing your clothes such a problem?
    Maybe I'm just old-fashioned...
  • There are always those who try to justify filth.
    Europeans used to think, and some of them might
    still do, that washing more often than once
    a year was dangerous for their health.
    Funny that the fear of washing still exist to
    this day. They considered our native ancestors
    savages because they washed often.

    The black robes thought of being washed as being
    tortured, perhaps many other europeans thought
    that as well. Perhaps many still feel that way.
  • What a disappointment to the panty sniffers of the world.......

  • ...but there is a reason why these compounds are natural chemical dead-ends... they are energetic dead-ends as well: it's breaking the second law of thermodynamics: you can't have the bacteria churning out more energetic chemical processes than the energy you give them... there's a reason lactic acid is a dead-end chemical street: the bacteria have evolved to extract as much energy from a chemical source as they could, and they have, and they do... there's no getting around that energetic roadblock...

    Solution: nuclear power.


    ---
  • is a deoderant that doesn't turn the pits of my white shirts yellow!

    As for the poll, I've been out at the pub a number of times this week, so mainly my clothes smell like cigarette smoke; but now I'm off to do laundry, so I picked "fresh and clean."

  • Maybe it's just me, but every time I see
    'e. coli', I get it confused with Ebola...

    ;-)
    Jim

    MMDC Mobile Media [mmdc.net]
  • "Hey, that's a killer shirt!"
    "Thanks, it's the shit."
  • Reading the article is a bit tricky when New Scientist gets slashdotted.
  • i've heard that pheremones are most commonly found where b.o. is the highest, eg the armpit, so if you illiminate the sweat and odor, would you not also be illiminating a lot of the pheremones too. how will i get chicks then?
  • Err, am I the only person on earth who starts imagining something by recalling the smell and the taste of the event? I tell ya, if I could remember what I've seen as well as I can remember what I've smelt I would tell reality to go jump. Right now, let me think about watermelon. *woah* sweet. It is genuinely hard for me to tell the difference between a "real" taste and an imagined one. This could be just one of those things that is part of the differences in human experiences.
  • > [how do you know] Angelina Jolie doesnt smell like Pepperoni ?

    If she does, so much the better! (Us geeks love eating pizza :)

  • I want this in a spray can so I can hose down some stinky co-workers.

    Now available in Roll-on, spray-on, or crawl-on. Ewww!

  • poo (Score:1)

    by vbrtrmn ( 62760 )
    i wonder if they could could create clothes that have bacteria that eat poo, this would be great for those poor people that can't control their bowels or just like poo.

    --
    microsoft, it's what's for dinner

    bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
  • Why would she need to buy GM clothing when I could just lick it off for her for free? hehe
  • How will this effect the body's ability to cool off when it is too hot. When sweat evaporates, it cools the body off. If this bacteria eats the sweat, we would lose the ability to cool our bodies off naturally. Not to mention I don't want to introduce another strain of bacteria. Does anyone trust companies that much?
  • I don't want to have to have a permanent wedgie when it's warm just because my ass sweats a lot.

    Hmmm. I wonder if this is like how sunflowers turn towards the sun. Your pants will be attracted to the crack of your ass.

    -prator
  • ..start cheezy music...

    Just put this powder in the water with the rest of your clothes and it magically removes the organic and inorganic dirt! No more stinky clothes! No more stains!

    Soap! Use some today!

    ...end cheezy music...

    Seriously though, battling the organic dirt with bacteria is only solving half the problem. Where has the common sense gone?
  • dust is dead skin...
    you are asking for a flesh eating bacterium...

    Nah, just skin. It sounds interesting. Maybe if we send it up in space and blast these little fellas to every corner of the globe, we're FINALLY gonna get rid of dust.

    - Steeltoe
  • Isn't that the same stuff that forces towns to shut tell people "Don't drink the water because it's contaminated"? Interesting concept though. They should just make a body spray of the stuff so you can get to the root of the problem with some of the people who take BO to the next level, which is of course, biological and chemical warfare.
  • So that'll be the end of beautiful-women-looking-at-the-sweatty-only times?

    I understood that sweat is part of a masculine sex appeal, to cover it up would mean the same as throwing a brick at your own window - because aaahhh, women just plain simple like the scents of nature, they won't like this y'know.
    --

  • Cowboy Neal reported to be "rejoicing greatly."
  • Homer Simpson had a snazzy white suit made of this when he became that singers manager. Matt Groening the visionary ;-)

    "they don't call me the Colonel cause I'm some dumb-ass army guy"

  • Exactly!!

    So these happy little bacteria living in the crotch of my pants will now be eating sweat and excreting what? More stinking bacteria crap!

    Just because something will happily eat stinky crap, doesn't mean their crap won't stink.

  • So, everything you wear is white/bright coloured?

    As another poster pointed out, hot water causes clothing to wear out faster, as does bleach. I was complaining to a fellow jujitsu student about how my ghi (uniform) never seemed to come completely clean any more, and he said "Oh, I just use bleach." I then realised why his was starting to wear out after only a year (those things are TOUGH, and they also cost $60 which, to someone who likes to shop at Sunny's Surplus and thrift stores, is quite a bit).

    Dark clothing, especially cotton, is supposed to be washed in cold water. I've had some black concert T-shirts for _years_ (washing them with the design on the inside helps, too).

    Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
  • so what do you think will happen in these milkweed clothes when mr. i-make-phermones bacteria functioning at 70% metabolic maximum due to it's genetically-engineered burden is forced to compete for food with mr. wild-as-i-wanna-be bacteria functioning at 100% metabolic maximum? hmmph

    I think that since the freindly human is looking after the engineered bacteria and dumping *huge* populations of it into compitition that it will win. And if it starts to loose you just spray some more of it on so that the ratio is very tilted again. I personaly think that this would make a great deoderint. I belive I read a passing refrence to something like this in one of the "years best sci-fi" books and its something I have wanted to see since.

  • >Since I actually wash myself minimum once a day

    And anyone who doesn't is a fucking pig, as far as I'm concerned.

    Just try telling that to the folks living in the middle of Sahara or in other rather exotic places with rather little extra water. ;)

  • "Perfect for you hygiene-challenged computer geeks (you know who you are): " TRUE computer geeks don't have a clue that they're hygiene challenged.
  • I can't re-read the article because it's giving a JRUN error now

    Whoops, sorry, my mistake :-)

    Didn't look at the website as this was the article I read in my dead-tree-edition just before I came to work this morning, so it was still pretty fresh (unlike the jeans in question!)

    kind of reminds me of Roosta's towel...

    TomV

  • Frank: What kinda beer do ya drink kid?
    Kid: Heineken.

    Frank: Heineken??? F**k that sh*t - PABST BLUE RIBBON!!!!

    (I just got Blue Velvet on DVD last week - and Dennis Hopper's performance as Frank is one of his best - and that's my favorite line from the movie!)

  • Didn't Spiderman have a costume that was made of a sentient oranism?

    But seriously, what would happen to this harmless bacteria after being exposed to our sweat? It might not be very pretty.

  • ... it has been proven that bacteria without antibiotic resistance successfully displace and kill off bacteria with antibiotic resistance in the wild... why? because to defend themselves against antibiotics, resistant bacteria are exerting a hefty metabolic toll in order to survive... without antibiotics to worry about, those bacteria who are free to devote all of their metabolic efforts to survival and reproduction will outcompete their metabolically-hobbled cousins...

    Actually, that's not quite true. Some antibiotic resistance mechanisms, such as altered binding proteins, don't seem to slow the bacteria down much. You find them in nature all the time. Other mechanisms, like cellular pumps that actively punt antibiotics out of the bacterium, are much more demanding. It depends on the mechanism, the bacteria, and the threat environment.

    Remember, most antibiotics and antibiotic resistance evolved long before people were involved.

    More on the topic, does anyone else wonder how the heck you're going to sell "bacteria-infested" clothing to the average idiot in a clothing store? I can just see the ads now, with happy singing bacteria dancing through the clothing fibers. Anybody want to suggest a catchy slogan?
  • Let's say the critters get out of hand. Exponential growth - heat generated from metabolisis - then BOOM - spontaneous combustion. I wonder how'd you smell after that.
  • Correction, there would be a lot of naked hippies that still stink.

  • Whatever happened to CowboyNeal? Just at LinuxTag, CmdrTaco said that CowboyNeal is the right answer to all questions and of course it is: My clothes do smell like CowboyNeal.

    You really left out an important option here. Shame on you.

  • a dust eating parasite would be alot more interesting

    They're already there; dust mites. Too bad their poop gives some people an allergic reaction...

  • So... (Score:1)

    by HiQ ( 159108 )
    from now on the smell of fear won't be so terrible then?
  • Changes sweat stench into a good smelling fragrance... I can't wait till they put some of kind of bacteria into my toilet bowl that changes it into gold. Weehaw!
  • Actually that's why your armpits and sweaty clothes stink. Fresh sweat doesn't stink. Of course there are some pheromones and whatnot included, but most of the nasty smell comes from the waste products of the bacteria feeding on our sweat. I wonder how these engineered bacteria will compete with the natural ones already present.

    Also, I can't really see this as something we'd want to have. Whenever my clothes get drenched in sweat on scorching hot summer days I prefer changing them after a nice cold shower. I seriously doubt that any technical innovation will ever get me to cut back on personal hygene. Of course, there are a lot of stinkers out there who just don't care. I can see an application of this technology on them, for the benifit of the rest of us.

    A penny for your thoughts.
  • How can your clothes smell like Angelina Jolie when you're a man?

    Because she's all over me!

  • One of the most unpleasant things I ever had to do in my professional career is talk to a subordinate about hygene--that is, bathing and not smelling. The "gifts" of deodorant, soap, cologne, and shampoo left by co-workers didn't seem to convey the message that it is unprofessional to stink. His stench was so unbearable, the President of the company told me to give him an ultimatum: stop smelling or be fired. Well the ultimatum worked and he henceforth ceased to stink.

    This technology brings hope that someday the plague of the stinky programmer, scientist and researcher will be wiped out like polio. No more shall co-workers have to suffer an intolerable stench. No more will someone curiously wonder why they find soap on their desk every morning. No more will I have to threaten to fire someone because they won't bathe on a daily basis.

    But before that day comes let me just give everyone a word of adive: "This ain't France. Taking a shower every day. And for Pete's sake put on some deodorant."

  • We already have billions of sweat-eating bacteria on our bodies... this is what leads to the phenomenon known as "stank-ass body odour".
  • How can your clothes smell like Angelina Jolie when you're a man? My guess is, they thought she's a man. Sure she's ugly, but she doesn't look anything like a man to me.
  • I never wash my cloth because I'm too lazy and I have to go get new ones when people start complaining about the smell. Thanks to those cute little bacteries I won't have to buy new clothes.
    From now on I'll be marketing bacteries and their benefits :)
  • ....because I'm sure she smells exactly like me, after she has been running and jumping through that movie all the time. ^_^
  • I work in quality control in the meat industry in the US. Considering that everything's tested for E. coli these days, the amount of false positives generated by letting your clothes contact the meat would drive the entire industry bonkers. So more power to them; they DESERVE to be driven bonkers.

    What would also be fun is taking water samples that are tested for general coliform contamination and, whoops, accidentally letting your shirt sleeve contact the sample as it's being analyzed.

    There's a great deal of potential for abuse for these clothes...

  • >Geeks might, on average, have a harder time keeping clean, but these types of clothes is NOT an excuse for letting things slip even further. *bad grammar alert* >Nothing beats a good healthy shower and a bar of soap! Think carefully before saying nothing, for a way acompanies every way. The way may not be found today, or tommorow, but some day, humanity will cast off the shakles of soap and water, and delare in one voice, "We shall ever bathe again!"
  • And this would be good for hygien challenged individuals how? Read first, mark as troll later.... OK?

    This type of clothes, although a great scientific feat, will not exactly promote better hygien. If you can walk around for days or weeks without washing, and these clothes make you smell irresistible - I would hardly call these clothes 'the best thing since sliced bread'. Geeks might, on average, have a harder time keeping clean, but these types of clothes is NOT an excuse for letting things slip even further.

    Nothing beats a good healthy shower and a bar of soap!

  • It could always mutate into something that lets say, eats off your skin.

    I think it would be strangely appropriate for mankind to die off in a vain attempt to be more socially acceptable.

  • I always thought the (odourless) anti perspirant "Deoleen" also had some stuff in it actively killing bacteria. It does do some good, although it is certainly no total solution to the problem. anyway, I don't see how bacteria on clothes could reach the sweat in time, before the other bacteia do.

  • Smell (Score:1)

    by morie ( 227571 )
    The smelly part of sweat is produced by bacteria, and deodorants try to keep those bacteria from growing. So now we are going to introduce clothes with bacteria on them and expect them to reach the sweat earlier than the bacteria on our skin? get real!
  • Brute force was required.
    "They're tough little guys,"

    Are you telling me that this Fowler guy and his team of scientists almost got their asses kicked by bacteria? BO is the least of their worries if that's the case. Hit the weights boys!

  • My girlfriend doesn't call me 'sweetie' for nothing.
  • why not use e.coli in the laundry detergent. that way, when shirts start moving on their own, (and beileive me, I seen it), the detergent will take care of them. either that or burn them. the choice is yours.
  • Let us ponder the mysteries of life.

    Bacteria that loves sweat living in clothes plus sweaty person that wears clothes plus evolutionary pressures for survival equals bacteria that migrate to people and start hiding out in unwashed nooks and crannies and folds of flesh and reproduce like mad.

    Sign me up! I can't wait to be part of the next experiment in cultivating a flesh-eating bacteria plague which will leave my tortured skin smelling lemon fresh!

    (Seriously, what about people with piercings and skin infections and cysts? Perfect spots for sweat-eating bacteria to hide out in. Be scared.)
  • So in order to get rid of harmless bacteria, I'm going to put a harmless one on my body. e. coli is e. coli. It could always mutate into something that lets say, eats off your skin.

    sounds like cutting of your nose to .... forget it.

  • So these things breed and lie dormant when you don't wear the garment for a while? The article (yes, I read it) says you may have to dunk your clothes in special nutrients to revive the bugs. That stinks. Maybe Tide could make a special detergent designed for sweat-eating clothes.

    I'm hoping that the beer, coffee, and coke spills, candy bar and cookie crumbs, cigarette ashes, plucked eyebrows, cell phone and beeper radiation, mailing tape excess, fallen out rotted teeth (from the junk food), air pollution, coughs (from myself and other), snot from sneezes, soap from sink, water, and toilet paper mistakes that are commonly attached to my clothes will also help feed these critters. Hell, maybe I need these things after all.

  • dust is dead skin...

    you are asking for a flesh eating bacterium...

    arrgh

  • I need a bacteria that takes care of all the household chores. While you're at it, I could use a bacteria that debugs my code and reminds me of Mother's Day.

    Miko O'Sullivan

  • I don't want any tiny biological creatures in my home. All I need is a French Maid.

  • How come more people aren't saying it's a terrible idea? Are people too lazy to take a shower? Are you going to wear a bacteria skullcap to keep your hair clean too?

    My goal is less bacteria, not more. It may be just a matter of time before some killer disease wipes out half the human population.

  • Angelina Jolie doesnt smell like Pepperoni ?
  • Now I have a reason not to do laundry (besides the old smell test)... but seriously, a form of e.coli??? I hope they know what they're doing... that isn't a particularly nice organism.
    just a thought - doesn't ecoli come from rotting flesh (bad hamburger for example)??? Sounds like alot of my fellow nerds to me... ;-)
  • "Cameron Diaz hates deodorant and anti-perspirant."
    Well there went my dream.. thank god imaginary scenarios dont come with smell
  • Buy our flasy new threads, with NEW, IMPROVED pheremone enhancement. These clothes will actually generate attractive scents as you wear them! etc., etc.

    Selling these wouldn't be a problem. Just don't mention that your new improved process involves live bacterial cultures. (OTOH, live yoghurt sells well, so that may not be necessary.)


    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • In the words of MST3K, "Well, she was going to smell like beer sooner or later."
  • There would be a lot of naked hippies?
  • call me stupid, but i still don't get it

  • What if your milkweed-based clothing were infested by ravenous mutant Monarch butterfly larvae?
  • There are lots of different strains of Escherichia Coli, some good, some bad. This micro-organism is very well known since it is easy to research.
  • >Fowler hopes to reactivate them by soaking
    >the milkweed fibres in additional nutrients.

    Waiter, I'll have the soup and salad combo. Can I have a big bowl of beef broth too? It's for my jacket...
  • There are several questions to be answered before I use something like such bacteria.
    • Would not these bacteria proliferate too much? :-) That is, I'd dislike my shirt to become visibly spotted with a bacterial colony in the place of a sweat stain. With bacterial attitude to multiply exponentially, this can be an issue. Also, when such 'on-the-spot' colonies then die out to 'normal' concentration, they should not leave something wrong. Happily, AFAIK, most bacteria 'corpses' decay without smell or hazardous proteins.
    • How will the bacteria survive washing, esp. with those 'bio' detergents, and ironing? Surely, bacteria population will be severely oppressed by this, if not killed completely. So, clothes owner will either feed the bacteria somehow (sprinkle sugar solution over a freshly-washed shirt, anyone?) or wait some time before bacteria restore normal concentration and start to work, or maybe even apply them to the clothes again. Also, if bacteria died out on some spot of your clothes (where your iron was occasionally stopped for a moment), how long will it take for them to get there again? How mobile should they be, then?
    • If bacteria are noticeably mobile, would not they eventually populate your other clothes? (This can be seen as a positive effect, though.)
    • And, of course, how is it guaranteed that the bacteria will produce odourless (and non-hazardous) products only, as intended? Small genetic deviations are inevitable, as thousands of generations of bacteria evolve. JFYI, sweat itself is near odourless, it is microbial organisms that live in armpits that produce smelly substances out of it. And, to make one feel an odour, it takes very small quantity of molecules; to destroy the odour, near all these molecules are to be caught and destroyed. That is, it takes significantly less effort (and bacteria) to produce an odour than to destroy it.

    Where such bacteria could make real sense is one-time non-fabric underwear and such -- I heard that in Japan it is a usual thing.

    A spray that contain these bacteria in inactive state, that can be used on any clothes (or a car seat, or whatever) could be much more practical.

    A genetic mechanism that forces the bacteria to die after, say, 1e+5 generations, can be seen as a reasonable safety measure, too.

  • Alex Lightman of Charmed Technology quips, "I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them, but if they were selected to convert my sweat into sweet-smelling pheromones, that would be great," he says.
    Alex Lightman, whoever he is, makes a really lame joke of the sort you might expect from an 8 year old /. reader, and yet it's posted as a news story. Isn't there any quality control?
    --
  • I'm afraid I've never heard of that one - I live in the UK, and while we've got a lot of the same brands as the US I don't think that one's out over here.

    As I said in my original post - most brands do nothing. It's about time they came up with some that do, though I'd rather have anti-perspirant cos sweat is still kinda gross even if it doesn't smell.

  • Glad I entertained you : )

    PLUG PRICE="cheap"There's more random crap over at my homepage too/PLUG

  • The one time that the ever inane "CowboyNeal" option would actually be funny and it's not even an option.

    Sigh.. I guess I'll just have to choose "Rolling Rock, or maybe it was Heineken" since it did take about 6 [silverlake-2000.com].

  • Cool! I wonder whether the bacteria's excreta will smell better or worse than the perspiration they feed on! Any thoughts on this?
  • Thanks to that kind of innovation now I won't have to take a shower every month, it'll probably be every three months or so :)
  • All nice and dandy - but me being a geek, I always machine-wash my clothes at 90 degrees celsius, using whatever detergent I can find on sale. Surely, this will have som negative impact on the bacteria?

    Since I never iron my shirts, I guess that won't be much of a problem though.

  • best laugh I've had all day, thanks buddy *LOL*
  • Took me a second to digest it. Ah, for the days when ascii art was king. Adobe ASCIIshop anyone?
  • Took me a second to digest it. Ah, for the days when ascii art was king. Adobe ASCIIshop anyone?

    *blush* sorry about that. I really want to make it better but in view of the words limitation in sig.... :/

    It looks okay in netscape, but I found it looks awful in IE....is that MS behind all these again? :D
  • Since I actually wash myself minimum once a day(if ive played soccer or skateboarded that that day, I would probertly do two :o) , a dust eating parasite would be alot more interesting. Then i wouldnt have to clean my appartment all the time.. Dust sucks...

    PS. Get a girlfriend, she probertly wouldnt let you run around in the same pants all the time anyway..
  • I wonder how well the bacteria would stand up to washing. Or maybe they'll come up with bacteria that feeds on common clothing stains, too. That way, you'd never have to wash them. Imagine: No more shrinking jeans episodes!! That way, if your clothing was too tight, you'd have nothing else to blame but your poor eating habits.

    A question: any chance those E. coli bacteria could mutate into a harmful strain?

    GreyPoopon
    --

  • you're totally right... but that would be one hacked bacterial genome!

    normally in the fermentation/ rot/ stinkiness process, successive cycles of creatures take over these descending paths of chemical dead-ends as you suggested from acids to alcohols to formaldehydes to carbon dioxide... as the chemical environment changes...

    having said that, why hack one organism's genome? stick all these organisms together in cooperative symbiotic mode, like a lichen, just like in nature ;-)

    then encapsulate them all in some sort of semi-permeable membrane/ beads and you won't have to worry about them competing with the wild bacteria

    now the problem is that this becomes a real complex bio-hack... good luck! ;-P
  • Sience update:
    The smell you have under your arms is not the sweat itself.
    Its the excrement of the bacterias that is living under your arms and feesding on your sweat.

    So if the other type of bacterias manour is smelling better it migth be a good thing :)

    Or how about this:
    Genemanipulate a bacteria that will eat other sweat bacteria.
    Other modifcations:
    Make the excrement that the bacteria produce smell better.

    No mather what the choises wil be... take a shower

    Ascii(64)

  • A few years ago, Dinson-Merrill developed a similar product in order to significantly improve their odor-eater-type shoe insert/foot desmellerizer product.

    During pre-production product testing, they discovered that about 2% of the pilot program users had developed a serious allergic reaction to the bacteria. The last I heard, the product was put on the back burner - they couldn't adequately circumvent the health issue.

    This seems like a nearly identical idea, and so the same health concerns would apply.

  • Cameron Diaz will be happy (Score:3)

    by simpleguy ( 5686 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:06AM (#105070) Homepage
    I read somewhere that Cameron Diaz hates deodorant and anti-perspirant. I am willing to bet money she will pet some of these bacteria :)

    Mmmm, me wants to become sweat-eating bacteria on her now !#%

  • Re:are these researchers smoking the milkweed? (Score:3)

    by Guppy ( 12314 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @05:14AM (#105071)
    "the majority of their metabolic byproducts will still be what makes them "gross": lactic acid, butyric acid, tartaric acid, other nasty smelling compounds..."

    Not necessarily, there are other compounds which can also serve as the end product of a fermentation process. For instance, alcohols. And if you choose to use more advanced organisms that engage in oxidative phosphorylation, you can go all the way to C02 + H2O.

    On a different note, I'd choose something other than E. coli for this purpose. An endospore-forming bacterium would be much tougher, as you could expect at least a small fragment of the population to survive just about anything short of an autoclave.

  • Re:e. coli? (Score:3)

    by Basje ( 26968 ) <bas@bloemsaat.org> on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:34AM (#105072) Homepage
    The primary source of E.Coli is feces (i.e.shit). It lives (and helps) in your digestive system. It survives outside for a relative long period, longer than most bacteria.

    Thus E.Coli (Escheria Coli) is used as an indicator for bacteria in drinking water in general. Drinking water that is contaminated with E.Coli probably is contaminated with sewer water.



    ----------------------------------------------

  • Re:Why Angelina Jolie? (Score:3)

    by radja ( 58949 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:15AM (#105073) Homepage
    it's my shirt, my boxers, and she's wearing 'em.

    //rdj

  • No more personal space (Score:3)

    by leucadiadude ( 68989 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:18AM (#105074) Homepage
    Well, there goes the best way to get some space on the subway/bus. No more three weeks+ old B.O.

  • Re:Smell (Score:3)

    by Dr_Cheeks ( 110261 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:28AM (#105075) Homepage Journal
    The smelly part of sweat is produced by bacteria, and deodorants try to keep those bacteria from growing.
    Actually, the majority of deodorants are nothing more than perfumes to mask the smell - they do nothing to prevent the bacteria. There's also anti-perspirants, which stop you sweating (with limited success) and give the bacteria less food, but don't directly kill them.

    The only such product I've seen that has anti-bacterial properties is a King Of Shaves spray with some sort of bacteria-killing herbal extract - dunno if you'd call this a deodorant or not

  • Re:Washing? (Score:3)

    by TomV ( 138637 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:22AM (#105076)
    I wonder how well the bacteria would stand up to washing.

    As you saw when you read the article, but seem to have forgotten in the intervening time, you don't wash them. they live off the dirt in your clothes. and if you leave your clothes clean for long enough for them to become dormant, you feed them by wearing the clothes.

    Or maybe they'll come up with bacteria that feeds on common clothing stains, too. That way, you'd never have to wash them

    Again, when you looked at the title of this story, you noted the words "Sweat-Eating Bacteria to Live in Your Clothes", and when you read the article, you noted that you wouldn't have to wash clothes anymore due to the bacteria keeping them clean. And then the amnesia hit again.

    A question: any chance those E. coli bacteria could mutate into a harmful strain?

    Clearly, the answer is yes. although there are thousands of strains without which we'd all starve due to our inadequate guts, and a very limited number of strains which are harmful. But as long as you can resist eating Bart's shorts.....

    TomV

  • I have this already... (Score:3)

    by tenzig_112 ( 213387 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @03:58AM (#105077) Homepage
    I have a pair of shoes that converts my sweat into a greenish goo. Does that count?

    Today: "The Smartest Man In America Fixes Education System" [ridiculopathy.com]

  • If they had a choice... (Score:3)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:29AM (#105078) Homepage Journal
    I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them

    I'm sure they'd rather live in vacuum if they had a choice.

  • Re:Washing? (Score:3)

    by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <gpoopon@gma i l .com> on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:39AM (#105079)
    As you saw when you read the article, but seem to have forgotten in the intervening time, you don't wash them. they live off the dirt in your clothes.

    Perhaps you should read more carefully yourself. Although my memory is fading, and I can't re-read the article because it's giving a JRUN error now, I believe that the bacteria currently don't live off of dirt, or even sweat for that matter. They live off of some nutrients they soaked into the fibers. However, the statement was that they could be ALTERED to live off of sweat and body-odor causing chemicals. This, however, is only about 2/3 of the reason we wash clothing. The other 1/3 would be the grass stains, grape juice, or general mud and dirt that find their way to our clothing. My comment was merely to point out what washing would do, and promote discussion on whether the bacteria could be engineered to feed off of other substances that typically prompt us to wash our clothing.

    although there are thousands of strains without which we'd all starve due to our inadequate guts

    Yeah, that's one of life's more funny ironies. Your body can't do without something that can kill it. Of course, I guess you could say the same thing about water. As for eating Bart's shorts? Let's get Mikey to eat them. :)

    GreyPoopon
    --

  • Milkweed Clothing (Score:4)

    by Dr_Cheeks ( 110261 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:14AM (#105080) Homepage Journal
    Mmmm, sounds so appealing. Wouldn't it be simpler to just put these in a deodorant stick/ball/spray? That way you can apply them direct to your sweaty bits. For example - if the British summer ever gets warm enough I frequently take my shirt off, but my pits still sweat. Plus, this wouldn't mean you have to replace your entire wardrobe - you could just change deodorant.

    Incidentally, does anyone know just how close to the skin these clothes have to be? I don't want to have to have a permanent wedgie when it's warm just because my ass sweats a lot.

  • My clothes smell like: (Score:5)

    by atrowe ( 209484 ) on Friday July 06, 2001 @02:00PM (#105081)
    Option 8: Richard Stallman.

    Wait, I guess that's the same as Option 5: "That homeless guy on the subway".

  • bacteria are bacteria are bacteria...

    yeah sure, you can engineer them to manufacture some phermones, or lilac scent, or febreeze, or whatever as a byproduct of their metabolic efforts, but:

    the majority of their metabolic byproducts will still be what makes them "gross": lactic acid, butyric acid, tartaric acid, other nasty smelling compounds...

    it's hard to simply edit these compounds out of the bacterial output, as these compounds are simply the natural chemical dead-ends to well-established bacterial metabolic pathways.

    "well, you can engineer other processes to destroy these compounds as well"

    ...but there is a reason why these compounds are natural chemical dead-ends... they are energetic dead-ends as well: it's breaking the second law of thermodynamics: you can't have the bacteria churning out more energetic chemical processes than the energy you give them... there's a reason lactic acid is a dead-end chemical street: the bacteria have evolved to extract as much energy from a chemical source as they could, and they have, and they do... there's no getting around that energetic roadblock...

    plus, like any other ecosystem: the savannah, a coral reef, your intestines, there is a bitter battle for survival raging.

    it has been proven that bacteria without antibiotic resistance successfully displace and kill off bacteria with antibiotic resistance in the wild... why? because to defend themselves against antibiotics, resistant bacteria are exerting a hefty metabolic toll in order to survive... without antibiotics to worry about, those bacteria who are free to devote all of their metabolic efforts to survival and reproduction will outcompete their metabolically-hobbled cousins...

    so what do you think will happen in these milkweed clothes when mr. i-make-phermones bacteria functioning at 70% metabolic maximum due to it's genetically-engineered burden is forced to compete for food with mr. wild-as-i-wanna-be bacteria functioning at 100% metabolic maximum? hmmph

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