fungus

We've all opened a household appliance--maybe a dishwasher, washing machine, or coffee maker--and winced at the ensuing smell.

The funk, according to new research published in the British Mycological Society journal Fungal Biology, comes in the form of various types of fungi that are frequently found to be an agent of human disease in compromised and healthy individuals alike.

"This is such a new thing that we have few tips," Nina Gunde-Cimerman, a professor at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, said in an e-mail. "A thorough heating at high temperatures would probably be beneficial, although … Read more

Researchers in Shanghai have engineered super-thin sheets of graphene oxide paper that could be used as antibacterial material in shoes, bandages, and food packaging.

That's right. We mortal humans have discovered a kind of material that actually fights disease-causing bacteria, thereby opening a door into an unknown world of freakishly fresh food and feet.

As Chunhai Fan, Qing Huang, and colleagues at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics explain in their report in the monthly journal ACS Nano, graphene is a material first discovered in 2004 by the Russian physicist Andre Geim (also responsible for the development of gecko tape). … Read more

Attention, parents of school-age children. Are you worried about a growing Purell addiction? CleanWell has the hand sanitizer for you.

The San Francisco-based company has come out with an alcohol-free, all-natural hand sanitizer. I got some samples at the ThinkGreen conference last week and my hands have been free of epidemic-causing bacteria ever since.

The company claims it kills Listeria monocytogenes, Candida (we can make it together) albicans, Streptococcus pygenes, and Salmonella enterica. You can't spray it on chicken, but the salmonella killing would be great for kitchen sanitizing. Spray CleanWell on your hands and it kills over 99 … Read more