Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night-- a happy greeting to you where- and when-ever you are on the round rock we call Earth!
Since I've decided to start up a new blog, I found myself immediately suffering from writer's block. Obviously, I have plenty to say, but I think things just got all bottlenecked in my mind; once I decided to start sharing again, all my thoughts came rushing to the forefront as if begging to be the first post. Weird. And while I can probably fiddle with a few different ways to prioritize the subjects I'd like to tackle, I figure the first should be to address a thought that's bounced around in my brain quite often since the last time I maintained a blog... over a decade ago!
I cannot recall the entirety of the post from back then-- nor the title, TBH-- but I later discovered that what I had written at the time was wrong. Since that particular realization, I no longer had a blog, so even though I felt obligated to address my mistake, both the absence of an outlet and the wraiths of time seemed to have stripped any opportunity to do so. Even now, over ten years later, I feel silly bringing up the mistake from so long ago, but I thought I'd start off my new blog on the right foot (as they say).
The original post regarded the washing of hands with soap & water. Again, I can hardly even summarize what I had written so long ago, but the wrong claim that I made-- the one that repeatedly haunts me, particularly every time I wash my hands-- was that the temperature of the water mattered not; it was the scrubbing that mattered. While I still feel both claims are true, I believe those views were overstated, at least in the sense that the science was overlooked. The amount of time you are rubbing your hands together and lathering up certainly plays a massive role in handwashing efficacy. If you scrub your hands for just 15 seconds you remove about 90% of pathogens, but with an additional 15 seconds, you are removing 99.9% of pathogens. However, the true 'active ingredient', so to speak, is the soap and my post neglected that.
As per LiveScience:
'Soap's germ-zapping superpowers are built into its molecular structure: a "head" attached to a long "tail," according to Dr. Lee Riley, a physician, professor and chair of the Division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the University of California (UC) Berkeley. The head is hydrophilic, or water-loving, while the tail is hydrophobic — water-fearing or water-repelling. That hydrophobic tail has an affinity for fats, and all bacteria and some viruses — including SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 — have a lipid membrane, which leaves it vulnerable to a soap molecule's fat-puncturing tail.
"The tail inserts itself into the [bacteria's] lipid membrane, and that's how it ends up getting killed," Riley told Live Science.
When soap attacks these pathogens, the tails in soap molecules attach to the cell's lipid membrane, with the hydrophilic heads facing outward. This forms a tiny ball of soap molecules, known as a micelle, around the pathogen, Dr. John Swartzberg, a physician, clinical professor emeritus and infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley told Live Science. Bacteria or viruses are easily captured by micelles because the outside of the micelle is hydrophilic, so it's easily swept off your hands and down the drain — along with its pathogenic prisoners — when you rinse the soap away with water.'
So there. Maybe now that I have addressed my mistake (for no one more bothered by the fact than myself, most likely) my brain will let the niggling thought go. Only time will tell.
Hopefully it won't linger for another ten years.
Since I've decided to start up a new blog, I found myself immediately suffering from writer's block. Obviously, I have plenty to say, but I think things just got all bottlenecked in my mind; once I decided to start sharing again, all my thoughts came rushing to the forefront as if begging to be the first post. Weird. And while I can probably fiddle with a few different ways to prioritize the subjects I'd like to tackle, I figure the first should be to address a thought that's bounced around in my brain quite often since the last time I maintained a blog... over a decade ago!
I cannot recall the entirety of the post from back then-- nor the title, TBH-- but I later discovered that what I had written at the time was wrong. Since that particular realization, I no longer had a blog, so even though I felt obligated to address my mistake, both the absence of an outlet and the wraiths of time seemed to have stripped any opportunity to do so. Even now, over ten years later, I feel silly bringing up the mistake from so long ago, but I thought I'd start off my new blog on the right foot (as they say).
The original post regarded the washing of hands with soap & water. Again, I can hardly even summarize what I had written so long ago, but the wrong claim that I made-- the one that repeatedly haunts me, particularly every time I wash my hands-- was that the temperature of the water mattered not; it was the scrubbing that mattered. While I still feel both claims are true, I believe those views were overstated, at least in the sense that the science was overlooked. The amount of time you are rubbing your hands together and lathering up certainly plays a massive role in handwashing efficacy. If you scrub your hands for just 15 seconds you remove about 90% of pathogens, but with an additional 15 seconds, you are removing 99.9% of pathogens. However, the true 'active ingredient', so to speak, is the soap and my post neglected that.
As per LiveScience:
'Soap's germ-zapping superpowers are built into its molecular structure: a "head" attached to a long "tail," according to Dr. Lee Riley, a physician, professor and chair of the Division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the University of California (UC) Berkeley. The head is hydrophilic, or water-loving, while the tail is hydrophobic — water-fearing or water-repelling. That hydrophobic tail has an affinity for fats, and all bacteria and some viruses — including SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 — have a lipid membrane, which leaves it vulnerable to a soap molecule's fat-puncturing tail.
"The tail inserts itself into the [bacteria's] lipid membrane, and that's how it ends up getting killed," Riley told Live Science.
When soap attacks these pathogens, the tails in soap molecules attach to the cell's lipid membrane, with the hydrophilic heads facing outward. This forms a tiny ball of soap molecules, known as a micelle, around the pathogen, Dr. John Swartzberg, a physician, clinical professor emeritus and infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley told Live Science. Bacteria or viruses are easily captured by micelles because the outside of the micelle is hydrophilic, so it's easily swept off your hands and down the drain — along with its pathogenic prisoners — when you rinse the soap away with water.'
So there. Maybe now that I have addressed my mistake (for no one more bothered by the fact than myself, most likely) my brain will let the niggling thought go. Only time will tell.
Hopefully it won't linger for another ten years.
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