Literature Review (Yun Shu)

Our mobile phones are actually very dirty. For example, "One sample, collected at the 14th St. store, contained Staphylococcus aureus, the most common cause of staph infections, which can lead to an array of ailments, from minor skin infection to meningitis." (New York Daily News, 2010) 

Since the experiment was not done in Singapore, the results may differ vastly, but another experiment also showed that bacteria can be found on phones and the amounts were dangerous. "A lab tested eight randomly selected phones from a Chicago office for this article. The phones showed no signs of E. coli or staphylococci bacteria. But all phones showed abnormally high numbers of coliforms, a bacteria indicating fecal contamination. Of the eight phones tested by HML Labs of Muncie, Ind., there were between about 2,700 and 4,200 units of coliform bacteria. In drinking water, the limit is less than 1 unit per 100 ml of water" (The Wall Street Journal, 2012) This goes to show that the bacteria found on the phones may not generally be the same as we have different habits and life styles but there is bacteria there and some in dangerous numbers.

Our research would include testing the amount of bacteria on different parts of a person's phone(Gavin's) and coming up with a environmentally-friendly solution to reduce the bacteria on the different parts.

Sources
Caroline Porter. (2012, October 23). Calling All Germs. Retrieved July 8, 2013, from The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444868204578064960544587522.html?mod=e2tw

Oren Yaniv. (2010, June 5). Do they have an app for hand sanitizer? Demo iPads at city Apple stores are crawling with bacteria. Retrieved July 8, 2013, from New York Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/news/app-alling-demo-ipads-found-crawling-bacteria-article-1.179212