hygiene

Without the aid of a timer, how likely are you to brush your teeth for the recommended two minutes?

Not very, according to the folks behind a new smart toothbrush, the Beam Brush. They say the average person spends only 46 seconds brushing their teeth, but that a simple timer makes them 50 percent more likely to reach the two-minute mark.

So their Bluetooth-enabled brush, which debuted a year ago at CES, got FDA approval in June, and became available as of last week for $49.99, includes not only a sensor to track frequency and duration of brushing but also a timer that can play the user's music of choice for two minutes.… Read more

Some tech just sounds too good to be true. A removable, wireless sensor that adheres to dental enamel and can detect trace amounts of harmful bacteria just might fall into the too-much-information category for the squeamish among us.

But the silk, gold, and graphene-based sensor that looks a bit like a temporary tattoo could play a key role in detecting and treating various diseases and conditions, the developers at Princeton University say.

"This is a real-time, wireless response from a sensor that can be directly interfaced with a variety of biomaterials," principal investigator Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor … Read more

Poor mail carriers. Not only do they have to put up with threatening dogs and foul weather, but they spend their days touching what may be one of our dirtiest everyday objects: mailbox handles.

The only worse offender? Gas pump handles.

So says a new study by researchers at hygiene solutions firm Kimberly-Clark Professional, who took more than 350 swabs from a variety of everyday objects in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, and Philadelphia to measure ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) levels commonly used to detect contamination.

While they did not distinguish between contamination types (i.e. molds versus bacteria), they … Read more

In 12 cities across England this past spring, researchers took almost 400 samples from cell phones and hands on the hunt for bacteria.

The researchers--from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London--found that 16 percent of both the phones and hands contained E. coli, a form of bacteria that inhabits our intestines and is typically spread through fecal matter.

At 400, the sample size is by no means large, but if those percentages are accurate, there is simply no getting around the conclusion: traces of our own poop and the resulting bacteria are hanging out on 1 in 6 of our phones and hands.… Read more

A friend of mine once spilled coffee on her computer keyboard and then took it to a sink to clean that muck off with soap and water. She ended up having to get a new keyboard. Now I know what I should get her.

Devlin Electronics is offering a new keyboard that you can wash with water without harming the circuit board inside.

Dubbed "CleanKey," the keyboard is waterproof and fully submersible, even when it's still plugged in. You can also quickly wipe the surface, which is sealed and has no crevices for dust (and bacteria) to … Read more

Germs. Those nasty little pests that seems to crawl up into anything and everything. To make matters worse, we can't even see them, lurking there in the dark. Well, now we can fear them no longer. Shine a light (literally) into those dark corners and 99.99 percent of the little bugs will be gone. At least gone from your knife set if you use The Germ Eliminating Knife Block from Hammacher Schlemmer.

The knife block uses UV-C light to disrupt the nasty goings-ons of microscopic critters like salmonella, listeria, and staphylococcus. This is the same method that hospitals … Read more

There are all manner of activities associated with USB drives--many of them useless--but the one thing that will always defy logic to us is their relationship with the sense of smell. The most recent case in point: The "Scent Drive."

Most such items try to pass themselves off as aromatherapy devices, sometimes combining their functions with other dubious features. But we're beginning to think they're actually targeted at people who are, to put it delicately, hygiene-challenged.

Think about it: Giving them a bar of deodorant soap might be a tad obvious, let alone offensive (even … Read more

Brando is such a thoughtful company. When the Hong Kong gadget maker isn't dispensing heated mice to warm us up, it's worrying about how to correct our posture. It's even given us a USB lightbulb to brighten up the gray days of winter.

And now it's extended this compassion to matters of personal hygiene with the "USB OptiWind Mouse." This fan-cooled peripheral is designed to keep palms dry even for the most avid gamers with its built-in air conditioner. And it's a lot more discreet than such alternatives as the "Anti-Perspiration Wrist Pad&… Read more

I know that girls' feet (and hence, their shoes) are supposed to smell like a combination of fresh-cut lilies and pure spring rain, but mine sure don't, especially when I'm coming back to the apartment after a jog through Manhattan's sticky summer humidity.

So far, I've found no solution to the issue, which concerns me, because I like to keep the health and well-being of my roommates and neighbors in mind. On particularly hot days, sometimes I worry that the smell of my sneakers post-workout might accidentally kill some baby bunnies or kittens, or on the … Read more