Official News page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: MEN ARE SLOBS

by Hazed

If you’ve always thought that men are grubbier than women, then your outrageous stereotyping has now been proved right.

Tests on offices show that those inhabited by men were infested with far more bacteria than those where women worked.

Scott Kelley, a biology professor at San Diego State University, examined 90 offices in New York, San Francisco and Tucson, checking for the bacteria found in human skin, the nose, mouth and intestine. They swabbed five surfaces in each office with sterile swabs: chairs, phones, mice, keyboards and desktops.

The result: men’s offices had up to 20% more bacteria than women’s offices.

“The differences between contamination levels in the offices of men and women may be explained by differences in hygiene,” the study’s authors said.

“Men are known to wash their hands and brush their teeth less frequently than women and are commonly perceived to have a more slovenly nature.”

See, I told you men were slobs!

Actually there’s a bit more to it than that. On average, men are larger than women, so they have more skin surface on which bacteria can grow. They also may shed more bacteria into their surroundings.

The good news is that most of the bacteria found in the survey was harmless. Phew!

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/05/30/bacteria-
offices-men-women.html

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