In fact, research by AOL-UK has turned up even more dirt on PC users. The average keyboard, it said last week, accumulates up to two grams of dirt per month.
While noodles and urine may be more specialized forms of sub-keyboard accumulations, crumbs are common, as many PC users tend to eat over their machines.
Whatever it may consist of, this makes the average keyboard a bacterial paradise.
Earlier this year, a team of infectious disease specialists took cultures from computer keyboards in the Tripler Army Medical Centre intensive-care unit in Honolulu.
They found that 25 percent had a strain of the multi-drug-resistant staphyloccocus aureus bacterium.
It is not just computers in hospitals that are potentially hazardous. Users at cybercafes, offices and at home can sneeze or cough at the keyboard, spreading germs about.
According to the South China Morning Postt, cleanliness experts recommend disposable computer keyboard covers, the application of bleach, or using compressed air to blow away the bugs.
Professor Hugh Pennington, however, argued that PC users need not fear catching something from their computers. The infection expert from the University of Aberdeen says germs on keyboards die quickly when exposed to sunlight, and such infection is unlikely, since unless users are "very immunosuppressed."
