We don’t like touching other people’s C.diff on bathroom door handles. As a matter of fact, even when visiting each other’s houses, we regularly find ourselves ripping an extra paper towel to grab the handle on a bathroom door, then fiddling with the feet to prop it open, and finally trying to masterfully throw the towel into the garbage bin located on the opposite wall. To stop all this silly juggling, Xela Innovations out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin has created a set of doorknobs that feature an automatic sleeve dispenser so that no two people touch the same handle twice
Here are features and benefits from the product page:
Advancing an antimicrobial-treated sleeve with every use, Purleve reduces the amount of disease-causing germs and bacteria, helping in the global fight against germ cross-contamination. As part of an advanced automatic hygiene cycle, a Purleve handle proudly installed on the door helps to create a superior facility image, providing visitors assurance that they’re visiting a healthy environment within an establishment that caters to the well-being of their patrons. Universality of design creates an unlimited global opportunity, with Purleve able to be easily retrofitted on any style of door worldwide. The addition of Purleve—and the absence of costly wasted paper towels accumulating on the bathroom floor in a wet and dirty mess —makes visiting any public area a cleaner experience. A simple interface and intuitive design strongly encourage compliance among users—particularly important in establishments that require more sanitary conditions. Recyclable refills, an efficient power source and low power consumption provide an environmentally friendly solution that is globally beneficial… and universally understood.
Product page: Purleve hygienic door handles
(hat tip: Gizmodo)
This week at the 19th International Congress on Photonics in Europe, a number of events relating to the use of lasers in medicine and the life sciences are taking place. Medical Physics Web has a rundown of some of the technologies from today’s presentations. Specifically, MPW gives focus to photodynamic therapy (PDT), optical coherence tomography (OCT), and the use of “a backscattered light detector (BLD) for visualizing tissue coagulation during MRI-assisted interstitial laser thermotherapy (ILTT).”
Hospital fires are not an uncommon occurrence, as one of our editors has learned having to evacuate his patients twice within just a few short months. As hospitals have become bigger and taller, the potential of dispersed people becoming trapped on different floors is only growing. Spider International, a small company out of London, UK, has developed a compact evacuation system that can rapidly bring people down to Earth on a steel cable.
