09.13.2007 JAYPLAY
9. 13.2007
health 15
11
os and play with it's always nice the way it was yes.
goodforyou/badforyou
COTTON SWABS CAN EAR-ITATE
Cotton swabs are perfect for doing your makeup and dusting your keyboard, but these tiny tools should lose their rep as safe scrubbers for your ears. "If people go too far in, they can actually puncture the eardrum, and you risk hearing loss as well as infection," says Stephen Segebrecht, ear, nose and throat specialist with Lawrence Otolaryngology Associates. Wax only forms on the outer part of the ear, so using a cotton swab is actually what pushes wax back to cause build-up deep in the ear. "When people have waxy all the way down by their eardrum, you almost see a concavity that corresponds to a Q-tip hit," says Barry Castaneda, Topea耳, nose and throat specialist. Cleaning just the outer crevices is all that's needed to keep ears wax free, and, if you do use a cotton swab, Castaneda recommends holding it at the cotton tip to keep from going too far in. To clear a waterlogged ear sans cotton swab, Segebrecht says to put in several drops of rubbing alcohol, lean over, shake your ear and then listen as the water dislaps no swabbage required.
then listen as the water disappears, no swabbage required.
VERDICT—BAD FOR YOU.
Megan Hirt
that's disgusting
SHOO FLY, DON'T BOTHER ME (OR PUKE ON MY FOOD)
In the movie The Fly there's a scene in which Jeff Goldblum's character, half-human, half-housefly, barfs on a donut in order to dissolve it and then digest it. While the movie is science-fiction, this scene isn't too far from science fact.
Flies have a spike located in their mouth which they stick into
their food. They then use the spike to vomit on the food, dissolving it, and ultimately ingest it through their toothless mouths. There's a bigger issue here, though—they're doing this every time they land on your plate. Even worse, they're leaving more than just puke on your food.
"Files feed on all types of garbage and animal waste, and those bacteria can stick to their legs and hair," says Douglas County Extension Agent Susan Krumm.
In addition to the germs of the turds they land on, flies can also carry strep and staph infections and, in rare cases, typhoid fever.
Krumm advises people to make sure
they have
screens on their doors, and to keep their food covered when they aren't eating. In the case of a picnic, she says that spray
of a picnic, she says that spray- ing the area with bug spray a few hours in advance is a good idea.
If a fly does crawl all over your meal, however, you don't necessarily have to throw it away.
"It's probably not smart to eat it," says Krumm, "but the health risks are minimal. We have strong immune systems."
So now that you know your body can handle a fly food invasion, do you think your stomach can?
Jared Duncan
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