Directions:
After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage
coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in
each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use
one word that best fits each blank.
Just How Buggy is Your Phone?
What item in your home crawls with the most
germs? If you say {#blank#}1{#/blank#} toilet seat, you're wrong.
Kitchen sponges top the list. But cell phones are pretty dirty too. They
contain around 10 times as many germs as toilet seats. People touch their
phones, laptops, and other digital devices all day long, yet rarely clean them.
In one incident, a thief paid a terrible
price for stealing a germy cell phone. He stole it from a hospital in Uganda
during a widespread of the deadly disease Ebola. The phone's owner reported the
theft before {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(die)from the disease.
Soon, the thief began showing symptoms and finally {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(confess)to the crime.
{#blank#}4{#/blank#} in that unusual case a cell phone carried dangerous bacteria, not
all germs are bad. Most cause no harm. In fact, they could provide helpful
information. Look at the surface of your phone carefully. Do you see some dirty
mars? “That's all you,” says microbial ecologist Jarrad Hampton-Marcell. “That's
biological information.”
It turns out that the types of germs that
you apply all over your phone or tablet are different from {#blank#}5{#/blank#} of your friends and family. They're like a fingerprint that could
identify you. Some day in the future, investigators may use these microbial
fingerprints to solve crimes. Phones and digital devices may be one of the best
places to look for buggy clues.
In a 2017 study, researchers sampled a
range of surfaces in 22 participants' homes, {#blank#}6{#/blank#} countertops and floors to computer keyboards and mice. Then they
tried to match the microbial fingerprints on each object to its owner. The
office equipment was easiest to match to its owner. In an {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(early)study, a different group of researchers found that they
could use microbial fingerprints to identify the person who {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(use)a computer keyboard even after the keyboard sat untouched for
two weeks at room temperature.
One day, microbial signatures might show {#blank#}9{#/blank#} people have gone and what they have touched. They could prove {#blank#}10{#/blank#} an unmarked device is yours. So, sure, your phone is pretty
germy. Does that inspire you, or does it just bother you?
