Scrubs: keep 'em clean, keep 'em off the streets

From what I understand, the great advances in wellness and longevity from the later 19th to the early 20th century were due far more to relatively simple public health measures than to the advancement of medical knowledge. Yet have we learned our lesson?

You see them everywhere -- nurses, doctors and medical technicians in scrubs or lab coats. They shop in them, take buses and trains in them, go to restaurants in them, and wear them home. What you can't see on these garments are the bacteria that could kill you.

Dirty scrubs spread bacteria to patients in the hospital and allow hospital superbugs to escape into public places such as restaurants. Some hospitals now prohibit wearing scrubs outside the building, partly in response to the rapid increase in an infection called "C. diff." A national hospital survey released last November warns that Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections are sickening nearly half a million people a year in the U.S., more than six times previous estimates.

I've been appalled at the practice of wearing scrubs as street clothes for years, ever since my ex went through medical school. I would hear all about what the med students were doing, and then I'd see them at the gym, working out in the same scrubs they'd been wearing for rounds. As I recall, both in med school and during residency, fresh scrubs were provided by the hospital, but many med students and residents would wear theirs home and back, along with their fluids-bathed clogs -- including my ex, over my rather heated protests. From the Wall Street Journal.

ADDENDUM: While the article mentions endeavors within the medical community to remedy the situation, including hospitals prohibiting scrubs from being worn outside their doors, what is not discussed is the possibility of legislative action on the municipal, state, or even federal level. More publicity would also be welcome, to the point where wearing scrubs in public outside of a medical facility would turn heads.

Delete your data -- not yourself

Despite numerous articles, people still commonly dispose of old computers without wiping their hard drives (if you need info on how to do this, links here and here; for Windows, I can recommend Eraser).

Now I see, via the BBC, that a British magazine is now telling consumers that the only way to make sure their data isn't recovered is by taking a hammer to the computer and smashing it to bits -- advice that, if taken to heart, will surely lead to much more harm than good: cuts, smashed thumbs, splinters in eyes, and release of toxic metals being quite enough without the BBC article's safety instructions, which list the following, in this order:

Opening: Latches or screws should provide easy access
Earthing: Touch the metal chassis inside the computer case
Safety: Unplug the computer from the mains

If you still can. Emphasis added.

Mirror-eyed spookfish

. . . more things in heaven and earth, Horatio:

A Pacific fish uses mirrors as well as lenses to help it see in the murky ocean depths, scientists have revealed.

The brownsnout spookfish has been known for 120 years, but no live specimen had ever been captured.

Last year, one was caught off Tonga, by scientists from Tuebingen University, Germany.

Tests confirmed the fish is the first vertebrate known to have developed mirrors to focus light into its eyes, the team reports in Current Biology.

From the BBC.

Hunley update

It could be one of the nation's oldest cold case files: What happened to eight Confederate sailors aboard the H.L. Hunley after it became the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship?

Their hand-cranked sub rammed a spar with black powder into the Union blockade ship Housatonic off Charleston on a chilly winter night in 1864 but never returned.

Its fate has been the subject of almost 150 years of conjecture and almost a decade of scientific research since the Hunley was raised back in 2000. But the submarine has been agonizingly slow surrendering her secrets.

Full story here.