{"id":2778,"date":"2011-06-22T11:38:54","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T01:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=2778"},"modified":"2012-03-21T09:32:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T22:32:19","slug":"my-dishwasher-is-trying-to-kill-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/science\/my-dishwasher-is-trying-to-kill-me\/","title":{"rendered":"My dishwasher is trying to kill me"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2779\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 605px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2779\" title=\"dishwasher\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/dishwasher.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/dishwasher.gif 605w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/dishwasher-300x185.gif 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 605px) 100vw, 605px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dishwashers are a habitat for fungi. Image: Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>A pathogenic fungus has found a home in household appliances, according to researchers. <!--more--><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Researchers from the University of Ljubljana, University of Amsterdam, the Research Center for Medical Mycology in Beijing and the Sun Yat-sen University in China have suggested that the extreme conditions inside our appliances create perfect habitats for extremotolerant fungi. And some of them are potentially harmful to our health.<\/p>\n<p>Dishwashers, washing machines and coffee makers all have one thing in common- a hot, moist interior, providing a man-made niche for the fungi. Dishwashers, for example, produce temperatures between 60\u00b0 to 80\u00b0 Celsius and use high concentrations of salt and aggressive detergents during each cycle.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers took samples from 189 private homes, including seven from Australia, in over 101 cities on six different continents. The study, published in the British Mycological Society journal, <a href=\" http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S1878614611000729 \" target=\"blank\"><em>Fungal Biology<\/em><\/a>, found that 62 per cent of the dishwashers contained fungi, such as species from genera <em>Aspergillus, Candida, Magnusiomyces, Fusarium, Penicillium<\/em> and <em>Rhodotorula<\/em> on the rubber band in the door.<\/p>\n<p>56 per cent of the affected dishwashers were host to the polyextremotolerant black yeasts <em>Exophiala dermatitidis<\/em> and <em>E. phaeomuriformis<\/em>. Both of these species demonstrated a tolerance to heat, salt, detergents and both acid and alkaline water- a combination of extreme properties that has not been previously observed in fungi.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\" http:\/\/www.mycology.adelaide.edu.au\/Fungal_Descriptions\/Hyphomycetes_(dematiaceous)\/Exophiala\/dermatitidis.html \" target=\"blank\"><em>Exophiala dermatitidis<\/em><\/a> is described as an agent of disease and can cause fatal infections in healthy humans. It is also known for its involvement in pulmonary colonisation of patients with cystic fibrosis.<\/p>\n<p>The presence of these black yeasts within household appliances could mark the beginning of an evolutionary process for the fungi and a new health risk for humans.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\" http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2011\/06\/110620133138.htm  \" target=\"blank\">Science Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A pathogenic fungus has found a home in household appliances, according to researchers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-science"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2778"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2793,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778\/revisions\/2793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}