[BenV (OP)]

You can find out which is which by listening to this episode of the Naked Scientists podcast about bacteria and infection.

Plate 1.jpg (9.02 kB . 189x177 - viewed 10017 times)

Plate 2.jpg (5.51 kB . 189x166 - viewed 9799 times)

[Seany]

I voted plate 1. Everyone knows it is basically, because there were lots of adverts that there were tons more bacteria in the kitchen than on a baby's dish thing or a toilet seat!

[rosy]

Dunno... but it's going to depend on where in the kithen the swab came from and how recently the toilet was flushed- concentration of bacteria will go down when the toilet is flushed but they'll probably breed up pretty quickly.

Also, not relevant to the numbers issue, the nastiness of bacteria is pretty variable... I would probably not be too worried about most of the bacteria where someone had just spilt the yoghurt, whereas the ones where the chicken for dinner had been might well be pretty nasty.

[Seany]

Dunno... but it's going to depend on where in the kithen the swab came from and how recently the toilet was flushed- concentration of bacteria will go down when the toilet is flushed but they'll probably breed up pretty quickly.

It's the seat of the toilet, not the inner bit!

[another_someone]

I voted plate 1. Everyone knows it is basically, because there were lots of adverts that there were tons more bacteria in the kitchen than on a baby's dish thing or a toilet seat!

Besides which, an elementary lesson in psychology will tell you the question would not be asked if the answer was plate 2.

[Seany]

Yep. Because everyone's first thought is that it would be plate number 2. So most people would definitely pick plate 1, because they assume it is some sort of trick question. Unless they already knew the answer.

[ukmicky]

There is the other one as well.

where is it safer to pickup and continue eating that tasty snack you just dropped on the floor ,your living room or the pavement out on the street where people walk up and down with all the dog and bird muck.

And the anwser is of course the street as the suns rays kill the germs on the pavement.
 

[neilep]

I think it's plate 3 ............Doh !!

[Karen W.]

I think plate No. one is the kitchen plate!.. Tons of germs on kitchen counters!

[elegantlywasted]

I thought it was a well known fact that it is safer to eat something that dropped into your toilet bowl than it is to eat something that dropped into your sink...?

[lyner]

I certainly wouldn't  like to eat most of the things I drop down my toilet bowl even after rinsing under the tap!
I would , however, rescue a tomato from the sink.

[logicat5]

Definately No. 1 is the kitchen. Did similar experiment in microbiology and results showed that bathrooms would be cleaner.

[BenV (OP)]

I've locked the poll as the answer has now been given out on air.  I'll let you all know the results when the podcast goes up on Tuesday!

[BenV (OP)]

The results are in!  In our test, we found roughly 5 times as many bacteria on a toilet seat as we did on a kitchen worksurface, including enteric bacteria (bacteria which could live in your intestines) and possibly salmonella and shigella (both of which can make you very ill)! This means that plate 1 was the toilet seat and plate 2 was the kitchen.  In the poll, only 11% of you guessed correctly, and all the rest of you were wrong!

For more information, listen to the podcast, or read the transcript.

Thanks for taking part, and remember to wash your hands after you've been to the loo!

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Whose toilet was it by the way?  []

[chris]

Ironically it was a toilet seat in our pathology department!

Chris

[Ronny]

Wow!
Think that all cats should go to the toilet as their owners do