Laptop
"Hot Sync's" Scientist's Manhood
Friday,
November 22, 2002
Reuters
reported today that a 50-year-old scientist
did not realize how hot his laptop was until
he burned his penis.
Reuters
said that this previously healthy father of two remembered feeling a burning sensation
after he had been writing a report at home for about an hour with the computer
on his lap. He noticed a redness and irritation
the following day but it was not until he was examined by a doctor that he realized
how much damage had been done.
Claes-Gorn
Ostenson, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, wrote in a letter published in
The Lancet medical journal on Friday, "The
ventral part of his scrotal skin had turned red, and there was a blister with
a diameter of about two centimetres (0.8 inches)." Two days later, the blisters
broke and the wounds became infected and then crusted but after about a week the
unidentified scientist was "healing quite rapidly."
Ostenson
noted that the computer manual did warn against operating it directly on exposed
skin but said the patient had lap burns even though he had been wearing trousers
and underpants.
"This...story
should be taken as a serious warning against use of a laptop in a literal sense,"
he added.
