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posted by chromas on Thursday October 18 2018, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the open-your-curtains dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Letting the sunshine in may kill dust-dwelling bacteria

Researchers at the University of Oregon found that in dark rooms 12% of bacteria on average were alive and able to reproduce (viable). In comparison only 6.8% of bacteria exposed to daylight and 6.1% of bacteria exposed to UV light were viable.

[...] Dust kept in the dark contained organisms closely related to species associated with respiratory diseases, which were largely absent in dust exposed to daylight.

The authors found that a smaller proportion of human skin-derived bacteria and a larger proportion of outdoor air-derived bacteria lived in dust exposed to light that in than in dust not exposed to light. This may suggest that daylight causes the microbiome of indoor dust to more strongly resemble bacterial communities found outdoors.

[...] The authors caution that the miniature room environments used in the study were exposed to only a relatively narrow range of light dosages. Although the researchers selected light dosages similar to those found in most buildings, there are many architectural and geographical features that produce lower or higher dosages of light that may need additional study.

Daylight exposure modulates bacterial communities associated with household dust. Microbiome, 2018; 6 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s40168-018-0559-4


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