Dust bunnies (or dustbunnies) are small clumps of dust that form under furniture and in corners that are not cleaned regularly.[1][2] They are made of hair, lint, flakes of dead skin, spider webs, dust, and sometimes light rubbish and debris and are held together by static electricity and felt-like entanglement.[3] They can house dust mites or other parasites and can lower the efficiency of dust filters by clogging them.[4] The movement of a single large particle can start the formation of a dust bunny.[5]
Dust bunnies are harmful to electronics because they can obstruct air flow through heat sinks, raising temperatures significantly and therefore shortening the life of electronic components.[6]
An American trademark for "Dustbunny" was registered in 2006 for the "Dustbunny Cleaner", a robotic ball with an electrostatic sleeve that rolls around under furniture to collect dust bunnies and other material.[7][8]
Dust bunnies have been used as an analogy for the accretion of cosmic matter in planetoids.[9][10]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Scientists figure out how accumulating dust particles become planets". Retrieved 20 March 2023.
- ^ "What are Dust Bunnies?". Retrieved 7 January 2024.
- ^ Fella, Answer (2009-02-05). "Dust Bunny Facts - Physics of Dust Bunnies". Esquire.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-20. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
- ^ Dust Control in Finite Air Volumes at Zero Gravity - Mean-Field Like Analysis. T.R.Krishna Mohan, Surajit Sen. 8 April 2004.
- ^ Dust and fibers as a cause of indoor environment problems. T. Schneider. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health. 2008.
- ^ Three Easy Ways to Save Your Computer From an Early Retirement Archived 2010-04-21 at the Wayback Machine. Christian Science Monitor. Chris Gaylord. April 15, 2010.
- ^ USPTO Dustbunny Trademark Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ A Method and Apparatus for self-propelled cleaning[dead link]. Bradford Morse et al. United States Patent Application Publication, US2006/0054187 2006 A1
- ^ Formation of Cosmic Dust Bunnies. Matthews, L.S., Hayes, R.L., Freed, M.S., Hyde, T.W., IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. April 2007.
- ^ Comet Dust Bunny Archived 2011-03-19 at the Wayback Machine. George Musser. Scientific American. October 24, 2005.
External links
editThe dictionary definition of dust bunny at Wiktionary