Dust bunnies
Laptop heat sink blocked with dust bunnies, restricting airflow
Microscopic view of a dust bunny. Scale numbers are at intervals of 230 μm.

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]

References

  1. ↑ "Scientists figure out how accumulating dust particles become planets". Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  2. ↑ "What are Dust Bunnies?". Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ Dust Control in Finite Air Volumes at Zero Gravity - Mean-Field Like Analysis. T.R.Krishna Mohan, Surajit Sen. 8 April 2004.
  5. ↑ Dust and fibers as a cause of indoor environment problems. T. Schneider. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health. 2008.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ USPTO Dustbunny Trademark Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ A Method and Apparatus for self-propelled cleaning. Bradford Morse et al. United States Patent Application Publication, US2006/0054187 2006 A1
  9. ↑ Formation of Cosmic Dust Bunnies. Matthews, L.S., Hayes, R.L., Freed, M.S., Hyde, T.W., IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. April 2007.
  10. ↑ Comet Dust Bunny Archived 2011-03-19 at the Wayback Machine. George Musser. Scientific American. October 24, 2005.
  • The dictionary definition of dust bunny at Wiktionary
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