These days practically everyone has a cell phone, and it goes everywhere you do.

But that also means it's picking up every germ you encounter, too.

"I carry my cell phone around," said dermatologist Dr. Laci Theunissen. "It's in my purse, my children are playing with it. I bring it to the bathroom sometimes, multi-tasking."

And that means some nasty little organisms may be hitchhiking from an unsanitary surface to your face.

"A lot of people don't think about it," Theunissen said.

To find out just what is lurking on that surface, cell phones were taken to a lab.

The phones were swabbed and the swabs were incubated for three days at 37 degrees Celsius - roughly body temperature - to see what would grow.

Streptococcus, as in strep throat, and staphylococcus, as in staph infection, along with a few other types of bacteria were found on all the phones we tested.

But there is good news.

Summer Session at Randolph-Macon College is your opportunity to explore a new subject, fill a credit need, complete a prerequisite, engage in close work with faculty members, pursue interests including independent research or internships, or begin your college experience.

 R-MC’s Summer Session offers two overlapping sessions and students may register for classes in either or both sessions. 

Session I: Wednesday, June 5 – Thursday, July 18 (Final Exam: Friday, July 19)*

Session II: Monday, June 24 – Thursday, July 18 (Final Exam: Friday, July 19)*

*Classes will not be held on Thursday, July 4

Click on Summer Session at R-MC for all the details!

Randolph-Macon College Asian Studies Professor Todd Munson is the author of The Periodical Press in Treaty-Port Japan: Conflicting Reports From Yokohama, 1861-1870 (Brill Publishing, 2013). The book offers an analytical survey of Japanese and English print media published in the “treaty port” of Yokohama during the tumultuous final decade of the Tokugawa shogunate.
 

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