'extremophils' are Organisms that can survive , and even thrive, in the toughest environments, including within glowing hydrothermal sources, sub-adnamarktic ice and the crushing of the earth's crust. Now they have been discovered in a somewhat more common environment: in microwaves.

although earlier studies of microbes in kitchen appliances such as dishwasher 1 Coffee machines 2 , this is the first time that the microwave on your own Microbioma was examined. The research Frontier in Microbiology published today in Frontiers 3 In the case of a widespread misunderstanding: that microwave radiation bacteria that cause food poisoning, such as Escherichia coli and salmonella , heats up and completely kills.

"We have all been taught since the 1980s that if you use a microwave, it is heating everything off - everything kills everything," says Jason Tetro, a freelance microbiologist, known as 'The Germ Guy', in Edmonton, Canada. This study is "important," he says, because it throws a light on potential pathogens in these devices, especially in devices used.

not everything that is heated up is killed

Alba Iglesias, a microbiologist at the University of Valencia in Spain, and her colleagues tested 30 microwave furnaces - including some in households; Some are shared in large rooms such as offices; And some used in laboratories to heat samples and chemical solutions . The team then cultivated its rehearsals in petri dishes and determined the genre of the grown microbes. They also sequenced the DNA of the material wiped from the microwave stoves to get a feeling for the bacterial diversity within the devices.

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