Quote:
Late fees could be the least of your worries next time you borrow a book from the local library.
A Belgian professor borrowed the most popular books from a library in Antwerp and tested them for bacteria, microbes and other substances.
He discovered traces of cocaine across all of most borrowed books, with the copy of erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey even testing positive for the herpes virus.
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Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz2l8EEG6RK
When pursuing secondhand book stores (which I imagine would produce similar results under testing), I never give a second thought for 'germs' -- much less for
cocaine being present in the books that I'm considering! I'd consider it concerning that Tytgat states the amount of cocaine present is '
significant enough to make them test positive for the drug'.
I want to emphasise that Tytgat states that you cannot catch herpes from reading a book with trace levels of the virus, and nor can you get high from reading a book with trace levels of cocaine. I simply thought that this was an interesting article to share!
What do these people do with their books? How often could I have tested
positive for cocaine after visiting a used bookstore or a library?
They're rhetorical questions, really -- I'm not worried about either event. I simply thought that a reading forum would be interested in this article.