Why kitchen sponges are the perfect home for bacteria

The tools provide the optimal physical environment for microbes to thrive

a dirty kitchen sponge on a white background

Porous kitchen sponges provide the perfect physical architecture for a bacterial community, offering the ideal number of compartments of varying sizes for the microbes to occupy, a study finds.

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Ask bacteria where they’d like to live, and they’ll answer: a kitchen sponge, please.