January 17, 2013 • 33 mins
You know when you drop a piece of food and if you pick it up within five seconds it's still good to eat? Researchers have studied whether that's true or not and in doing so have inadvertently shone a light on how utterly covered our world is with bacteria and germs. Prepare to shudder in this episode of Stuff You Should Know.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry.
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant's consulting his note, he's
wearing his glasses. Everybody's getting ready to podcast. So that
(00:22):
means just the stuff, you know, stretching, doing my yoga.
You just pet for the fourth time in the last hour,
got more coffee and you think a lot of coffee.
Well that was exciting. Yeah, And while I was getting coffee,
I was like, I used my elbow to press the
buttons to make coffee. Are you doing that now? Um?
I have become I'm trying to think back to what
(00:45):
initiated it, but I've definitely become far more germ conscious.
I'm not a germophobe because I can just be like,
oh god, you know that's fine. You your fingers touched
your mouth, Stop simpering, right, Like I can get ahold
of myself like that. But at the same time, you
know what it is. It was that it was flesh
(01:06):
eating bacteria when it was going around Georgia for a
little while, and then simultaneously like being aware that, like
the gym is lousy with germs, and I think that
that did a one two number on me, and all
of a sudden, I'm just very I'm very aware of
what I touch. I'm not super germ conscious. I have
been more so though, since we've started learning more about
(01:28):
this crap um. But we have a mutual friend whose
girlfriend won't even keep her toothbrush in the bathroom. Oh really,
she said, why would I among the fecal air? Why
would I keep my toothbrush in the bathroom? Makes sense?
And uh, she knows who she is. I don't know
(01:48):
who she is. I'll tell you after. Um, so you're
kind of you're okay with it, You're okay with the
idea of germs. I mean, there is this whole there's
this whole thing called the hygiene hypothesis, which makes uttering
complete sense to me that if you're allow more germs
and you'll just learn to fight them and have more
robust immune systems. Yes, especially growing up as a child
(02:11):
and the children who develop allergies, it's because they are
raised in a sterile lisol environment. My environment was a filthy,
dirty and and so when they finally get out into
this very filthy, dirty world e g um preschool. They are,
they don't have any anybodies built up for it. It
makes a lot of sense. I don't know that there's
(02:32):
any hard science that backs it up, but I don't
know that it's ever been disproven. But it's called the
hygiene hypothesis. It appeals to me. It apeels to me.
I I don't have allergies. I don't get sick that much. No,
and I'm unhealthy as it gets. I wouldn't call you that. No,
I'm in the middle. Yes, I appreciate that. Okay, I guess. Really,
(02:54):
the division line between a germophobe in a non germophobe
would probably be found somewhere in the five second rule
when don't you think? Sure? So, like if I dropped something,
depending on what it was and where I dropped it,
I would possibly eat it. There's a there's a comedian
(03:14):
here in Atlanta. It's pretty good. His names no Garden Schwartz.
And he's saying that, Yeah, it means Noah black Garden,
I think and uh. He was saying that, Um, the
five second role is basically exists on a sliding scale,
Like if it's a piece of broccoli, it's like a
zero second. If it's like a cheeto, it's like a
(03:38):
whenever I find it rule. Whenever I find it, pick
it up and eat it. Role Um. He does it
way better than me. But he had a great observation
about the five second rule. The point is for me,
it depends on what it is where it is, not
really even how long it's been there. I mean, if
if it's because there's so long and it's under the
(03:58):
couch and there's like dust bun he's accumulated on it,
I won't eat it. No, no, no, you wouldn't eat
anything that you didn't recently drop, would you. If you
just found a cookie on the floor, you would eat it. Again,
it depends on where where it was found. Like some
places seem far cleaner to me than others, like mine
(04:22):
and Humian's apartment is very very clean. So if it
fell and was just slightly under the couch, yeah yeah,
I would, Yeah, I'd eat it. It depends. I mean,
if it were a piece of salami or something, I wouldn't.
But there were like a very dry cookie, perhaps am
a good potato chip that wasn't stale yet. It's very clean.
(04:46):
I would blow it off and eat it. Yeah, I would. Um,
since we're talking about our sliding scales, I would eat
nothing that I didn't recently drop, unless it was a
if it was like a little bit sweets, Um the King,
they're canny, bar the King. If I found one of
those that I had just forgotten that was under my couch,
(05:08):
unwrapped on the floor, I would eat that, no matter
how long it had been there. I would maybe rinse
it off, or I would melt it down or in
reform it or do something deconstructed. That's what I would
do that. Um. You know, they released a box a
selection of caramels called stuff you Should Eat a little
(05:29):
Bit Sweets and it says specifically on their website that
that's in honor of us. Thank you listen jin Um. Okay.
So I feel like we've gone in depth on what
we'd do with the five second rule. The question still remains, Chuck,
is it Is it viable? Is that a real thing?
Like if you if you are an adherent to the
five second rule and you're like, I'm a very clean person.
(05:52):
I only eat stuff that's been on the floor for
five seconds or less. Are you full of it. Well,
you're sort of full of it, You're totally full of it.
There's a high school student, uh in two thousand three,
Jillian Clark and um she was doing her internship at
UH fighting l I and I of the University of Illinois,
(06:12):
and she said, you know what, we should do a
little study because it's the old wives tale about the
five second rule. And she coated, um, these tiles with E. Coli,
which is really gross, and dropped cookies and gummy bears
and things onto the surface for certain amounts of time,
and then studied what kind of bacteria picked up. And
of course, no matter how long had they been down there,
(06:33):
bacteria did jump onto the food within five seconds. What
is important to point out, though, is the long you
left it there, the more it picked up. So the
five seconds are under is important. Like it's usually not
five seconds for me. If I drop a piece of food,
I've got it back within my hand in like two seconds.
I've seen it. You're like like a ninja. And it
matters because the longest they are, the more bacteria's gonna
(06:55):
pick up. Right, yeah, yeah, um, So Jillian Clark just
did this very initial, preliminary investigation. But she was a
pioneer and received the two thousand four Ignoble Prize for
Public Health for her efforts. Yeah. Um, and so she
kind of she established this trail. She blazed the trail. Uh.
(07:16):
And then about four years later, some Clemson University researchers
really kind of dug in to figure out what was
going on with this five second rule and built on
Clark's work. Tigers. Yeah, I mean, we gotta say it.
I don't feel like we do. Screw you tigers. Um,
(07:37):
all right, So what did they found out? They found out, Well,
if you thought that the same thing, right, if you
thought the E. Coli bacteria and the tiles was gross,
I know where you're going. These guys created a broth
of sam and ella. They call it samuela soup, which
is so nasty. Yeah. And they they applied it to
three different types of material because I mean, like sure,
maybe five seconds you're gonna get some bacteria on it.
(07:59):
But what if what doesn't it depend on the kind
of food? Doesn't it depend on the kind of surface
that comes in contact with So these investigators their pros
they were at Clemson. Um, they applied to salmonella soup
to tile, wood surface and carpet, right, and then they
started dropping bread and bologny on it. Good choice, why not? Um?
(08:22):
And they they found what Clark found that in less
than five seconds, no matter how short the time, but
there was a bacterial transfer. Yeah, between a hundred and
fifty and eight thousand bacteria if under five seconds. And
consider this with salmonella, you only need ten individual bacterium
too for what's called it infectious dose. Okay, so that
(08:46):
is five seconds or under. If he left it down
there for a minute, it was gonna be ten times that.
And um, there are ten strains of salmonella not I mean,
besides just the bacteria, it's there's a lot of stuff
going on down there on your floor, most notably poopo. Yeah,
that's another thing to everywhere. But you should you should
(09:07):
take your shoes off. My wife is of Japanese ancestry,
and things I definitely picked up from hers, like you
take your shoes off when you come in the house,
so you just walk around without shoes on all the
all the time, or slippers or something. Yeah, because like,
especially if you're germ conscious, man, if you go into
a public bathroom and you walk out of there, you're
the bottom of your shoes are just like a nightmare.
(09:29):
You do want to track that all over your house
because you may find a cookie on your couch that
you want to eat. You have to plan for the
future basically, and that starts of taking your shoes off
in your house. For some reason, I don't think the
Japanese culture is rooted in the hopes that you'll find
a cookie on your floor and be able to eat it. No,
maybe not, but they are big into taking the shoes.
My friend Jason and in Tokyo that he is married
(09:50):
to a woman in Keiko, and years ago when we're
living in Athens, they started that tradition of removing your
shoes and he was like, hey, you mind, I was like,
of course not, watch this, what's it? Well? Sometimes they
will even provide like slippers and stuff for guests, Like
if you're in a Japanese home, so you're still wearing
shoes in there. But I get the point that I've
(10:10):
never left your house, so that's the deal. Yes, And
I don't like I'm old environment, You're all good. Yeah,
And I won't wear my slippers in the bathroom either.
I gotta tell you. I just got some new slippers.
What do you go barefoot in there? The bather socks
or whatever? Yeah, but like I don't want to burn
the socks I cut my feet off. I bought some
(10:31):
new slippers. Dude. I'm not usually wanted to plug things
on the air. But if you're a grown man and
you want some the best slippers you've ever had, and
you don't mind throwing down little cash men slippers, my friend,
what do you think I wear? I wonder if they're
the same ones. They are like little loafer sort of swede.
Mine don't have a back. They just have this soul
(10:52):
back and they had like the hard bottom. So you
can go out and get in the mail or if
you're me, go to the grocery store. Man, so comfortable
and all the what is it uh or whatever? It's
not it's called sirpa lining. Oh is it? Yeah? The
sheep shear, that's what. That's what some people call it.
(11:14):
So cozy. Okay, so slippers. I need to start plugging
these things and giving them for free. I'm a sucker.
Always buy them and then plug them, right, But it's
not a sucker. Chuck here above the boards, okay, Um,
so back to it. Oh so the longer the stuff
stayed in contact the more the more it was the
(11:34):
more bacteria that came upon it. But surprisingly, what they
found was that the transfer was the least for carpet.
The type of surface that came in contact with made
a difference. I thought it was the most for carpet
was the least. It was the least transferred, but the
stuff survived in the carpet longer, so it all washed out.
(11:56):
So it made some difference, but not really whether it's wood,
tylor carpet, when you dropped something on it, there's going
to be a a lot of bacteria transfer. But this
stuff survives on these services. Carpet, you're kind of like, okay, yeah,
there's a lot to it. There's pile and you know,
there's some sort of Berber factor and all that. Um,
you can't forget the Berber factory, right. Uh So, of
(12:17):
course carpet, that's not much of surprised that there's a
lot of bacteria in there, but would or tile. Not
only did they find that, like the stuff can survive
for a while, it survives for up to a month
a month after they put the stuff on there, a
month later, there was still living bacteria enough for an
infectious dose on all three surfaces. D That's okay, I'm
(12:42):
becoming more of a drama fobe. And yeah, we're all
turning into David Putty right now. And remember he and
Peggy who called Elaine Suze Susie. They both turned out
to be germa phobes. They had like a little back acteria. Yeah.
Remember Cramer made a radish rose in his shower. He
(13:07):
had a garbage disposal in his shower so he could
bathe at the same time. It was that episode. Um so,
I know earlier you mentioned, um it's just kind of
off handedly said. You know, if it's something dry like
a cookie or that actually makes a difference. You found
out that moisture can be the key to more bacteria transfer. Um,
(13:28):
So a dry cookie versus a piece of like wet
bologna or salami or moist bologny. I said moist bologny, Um,
we'll have more bacteria. And that's why they say when
you go to the restroom and you wash your hands,
the drying is just as important, not more important, than
the watching. Yeah, they found that, um, this transfer bacteria
(13:49):
seems to be facilitated by moisture. Right, so when you
touch something with your wet hands, you're gonna get a
bunch of a bunch of bacteria transferred onto your hands.
If you wash your hands and then use one of
those hands free paper towels spencers and dry your hands,
you can touch that same surface that you would have
touched with your wet hands, and you're gonna have far
less bacteria transferred to it. Yeah, or nowadays the air
(14:10):
dryers in the bathroom. Have have you noticed in the
past few years or just like for fifty years it
was the same air dryer. Oh no, there's the accelerator.
Now there's the accelerator and the Dyson blade dryer. I
like the accelerator because the Dicon blade you have to
stick your hands down in there like that, and it's
almost like playing operation, like it's almost impossible not want
to touch the side, and then like, what's what does
(14:32):
anyone clean the bottom of those things? Like? I don't
think so. The accelerator, it's all just like blowing your
hands and you're you're done, and it's you cannot touch
things more. I like the accelerator because the the way
it makes your skin ripple, like the g forces is
pretty amazing, like we were in the indoor sky diving
through Yeah, exactly. And let's let's talk about hands real quick, chuck.
(14:54):
So there's a study that came out of the University
of Colorado at Boulder and UM they found some really
surprising things using this technique called metagenomics where they take
a swab of like a sample off of your hands,
and then rather than doing culture, they do basically a
DNA profile for everything found in that swab. What they find, well,
(15:17):
they did fifty one participants. They found different bacteria species
across the fifty one participants. UM. And what what I
found was particularly interesting. They found that UM, only five
percent of these species were found in all fifty one participants. No,
(15:38):
five period not even percent. Oh yeah, five periods. So
out of all these species only when we're sharing. So
that means we there's just way more out there than
we thought, I guess huh. And it's just luck of
the draw as to what leaps to your hands, I
guess so. And not only your hands, but specific hands too.
They found that the right and left palms of a
single person share at only seventeen percent of the bacterial species,
(16:04):
so that means there's different species on different hands of
the same person. That's weird. And then women tend to
have a higher diversity of bacteria on their hands than men.
Not necessarily more uh bacteria total, but more diversity among species. Interesting.
So depending on which hand you shake, you're going to
(16:25):
be getting a different type of bacteria from someone. Yeah.
And if somebody like shakes your hands like, oh, it's
just water, I washed my hand, punch them in the
head because you're that's bacterial transfer. Jerk dry your hands. Yeah.
And uh and since you mentioned women, um, I think
the study by the Girl in two thousand three found
that women are more likely to eat something off the
(16:47):
floor than men, which surprised me. What surprised me is
where the person who wrote this article got that. I
couldn't find it anything. I saw that women were more
familiar with the concept of the five second rule, but
that not that they used it more. Yeah, you know what,
I'm gonna call that a dubious statement, then dubious indeed. Uh, okay,
so you've eaten something off of the floor, are we
(17:09):
get on hands? Yeah? Thanks for that, okay. I like
in the article they pointed out that out of the
fifty one participants, there were a hundred and two hands. Yeah,
this is like, all right, so good. You didn't have
any amputees in the study, right. What was funny is
I was I didn't think it added up, and then
I realized that's why I stopped for a second a
minute again. Um, all right, so you've picked up a
cookie off of the floor. It's dry, it's been down
(17:32):
there for three seconds, and you think, you know what,
I'm gonna roll the dice and eat it because my
stomach acids and the acids and my saliva is gonna
kill all this stuff factor fiction. That is fiction. That
is very much fiction. So says Uh, the germ guru
of the University of Arizona, go, what are the wildcats?
(17:53):
It's sun devils. There's the Arizona State. It's Arizona State,
Arizona's wildcats. Cats go wildcats. Charles Gerba, his name almost
looks like germ yeah close or Gerber closer than Clark,
Like he's the adult version of the Gerber baby. So
he says that UH virus is actually UH survived the
(18:13):
low pH In fact, a lot of them like it,
and that pretty much any bacteria that you can infect
your intestine with is going to stay alive long enough
to get to your intestine, right, It's gonna survive that
that acidity in your stomach. Yeah, look, look look for
a podcast on digestion. That was a good one man.
That was great if you want to learn how that works. Um,
(18:33):
And it does make a difference on where it's landed,
like you said, Um, some floors are more dangerous than others.
In bathrooms are the worst place on earth. Yeah, and
kitchens actually, kitchens are the worst. There's supposedly dirtier than bathrooms.
It depends on the bathroom. But yeah. Gerba points out
that of all the shoes that he's ever analyzed, and
this guy like runs around on Good Morning America in
(18:56):
the Today Show and like analyze this stuff and just
freaks people out. It's like kind of his for his trade. Yeah. Uh,
he said that the fecal matter appears on about of
the shoes he's ever analyzed. Of course it does. Yeah,
like I said, there's poop everywhere, poop everywhere, especially in
my house. So uh yeah, you'd think of public restrooms
(19:18):
pretty bad, and it is, but it depends on what
part of the public restroom you're talking about, and sometimes
compared to other places that it doesn't hold a candle.
There's some surprising germ statistics that were about to unleash
on you. Let's start with uh, let's just jump all over.
Then I got the kitchen floor. UM, the area on
(19:39):
the kitchen floor just in front of your sink. We're
gonna be doing your dishes and dropping food and poop.
UM has more bacteria than your trash can square inch
as opposed to four eleven, So double um and your
kitchen sponge. I know everyone knows that that's a really
filthy thing to have. You remember that one serry but filthy.
(20:01):
Remember the I think the Chlorox wipes or Lightsol wipes
commercial where the lady was using a sponge or like,
if you're using a sponge, you might as we'll be
doing this and she was just rubbing like a raw
chicken breast on her counter like it was a sponge.
That's basically true, though, It's like you you should be
really careful with your sponge, what you clean with it,
what you don't clean with it, um, the letting it
(20:21):
dry out, changing it like regularly, like if you've got
a two month old kitchen sponge and you're using that
to wipe your counter. You were spreading bacteria all over
the blaze. You don't love your family, so you can
use it at first. This is what I do, because
I'm a clean guy. My wife is not. I will
clean up after her with a sponge, and then I'll
go back with my organic spray and then do the
(20:44):
paper towel wipe after that. That's the final step in
the process. As always. The dry paper towel with my
seventh seven stuff is what I used. And then a
little bit of lighter fluid yep, sterilized the counter. All right,
So you're kitchen floor is dirtier than your trash can.
Your sponge holds sixty times more bacteria than your pet
(21:06):
food bowl, even though pet food bowls are pretty gross too,
supposedly because you don't claim out as much. And all
of this is germier than a toilet seat. Yeah, you
always hear that, the old toilet seat. Yeah, And I
think the reason why the toilet seat is surprisingly cleaner
in comparison, or or surprisingly germ free compared to other
(21:30):
things like your kitchen sink and all that is because
people clean the toilet seat more frequently because they think
of it as a dirty place. And this is kind
of borne out in another study that Gerba carried out
on behalf of the Chlorox Corporation, who make lights all
wipes UM, and he found that one of the dirtiest
places in the universe is a person's desk. And he
(21:52):
found that UM apparently the average desk has a hundred
times more bacteria than a kitchen table and four hundred
times more bacteria than the average toilet. And one of
the reasons is because people don't ever wipe this down.
So he did the study where he divided workers into
two groups. One group used the sanitizing wipes once or
twice a day, and then the other group didn't, and
(22:14):
after two days there was a ninety nine point nine
percent reduction in bacteria on the desk of the people
who are using the wipe. So wiping down your telephone, handset,
your dead mouse is a big one keyboard apparently, where
you typically rest your hand on your desk minds on
my mouse, UM has about ten million bacteria on average. UM.
(22:35):
But he also found that over the course of a day,
if you don't wipe your stuff down, you actually increase
your bacteria from nineteen to thirty one on telephone, mouse, keyboard,
desktop services throughout a day, it increases that much more. Man,
I haven't cleaned my desk in so long. It's been
a while for me too. I don't use the phone
though I don't either. Yeah, I don't even know my
(22:57):
number to give out. And and anytimes if some but
he asked for, I'm like, just email, Yeah, that's what
I do. Um. Molly Edmunds, the former co host of
Stuff Mom Never Told You Back in the day, she
wrote about cubicle death and specifically germs in the workplace,
like we were just talking about and um, she points
(23:18):
out that and if you're a restaurant and you have
more than seven hundred bacteria per square inch, you're gonna
be considered unsanitary. But you will come into contact with
ten million bacteria day in your office. And statistics like
people eat at their desk and don't clean. I eat
at my desk occasionally. I don't clean of people, uh,
(23:42):
only occasionally will wipe down their work area. And um,
your desktop itself, not the computer desktop, but your desk.
It's for me a hundred times germany or than a
kitchen table and four hundred again four hundred times Germany,
or than a toilet seat and presentee is um, which
is a big problem. Uh of workers, I'm sorry. One
(24:06):
third of workers that's not sev it's close reported to
the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases that they felt like
they were obligated to go to work even when they
were sick. Yeah, that's it's a problem. It's not okay.
And I know around here, especially Tracy Are she takes
it pretty serious. She's like she gets piste off on
(24:29):
people in here. Ye. Yeah, she'll say, if you're sick,
please stay home, um, because the office is dirty, your
bathrooms dirty, your kitchen's dirty. That cutting board that you're
cutting your vegetables on filthy. Yeah, it's all dirty, it's
all gross. Well, I can't remember. I was trying to
think of what episode biofilm came up. You were telling
(24:49):
everybody about biofilm. Oh, yeah, what was that? I can't
for the life of me remember. But um, that's how
bacteria survive. That's how they can survive on stainless steel.
That's how the it can survive on wood, on tile,
on nonpoorous surfaces, on synthetic surfaces that are designed to
keep bacteria from thriving. These things can survive because they
(25:11):
live in biofilm. It's this protective um film on any surface.
And if the surface has grooves or things like that
that where a biofilm can hide, there's gonna be a
lot more bacteria. And cutting board apparently is one of
those great examples, especially a wood cutting board, I think,
which I prefer me too clean and well though, yeah,
(25:32):
because I'd rather have some bacteria in my food than
like shards of plastic, you know. Yeah, that's a good point. Um,
So before you freak out and jump in a pool
of pure l most of these germs are benign. Like
we've quoted all these tens of thousands and millions of
germs and things, most of urbanign, and your body is
gonna take care of most of it too. But it
(25:54):
only takes like you know, when you find yourself retching
over the toilet with a stomach irs, it might have
just been one little bacteria that got through. And all
it takes is ten for Salmonello to gets you in
a hundred for E. Coli ten ten little guys the
bottom of a woman's purse randomly, uh, Gerba again just
(26:18):
ran up to some people. He's like, let me test
your purse, and he found UM from the hundreds to
six point seven million on the bottom of one woman's purse.
And he didn't say that that also had like pieces
of pot pie. Then there were probably reasons, but I
think that was one. That's a good thing to go
(26:38):
out on. Took you to good bye, reassuring everybody that
as long as your immune system is in order, you're
probably okay as far as these bacteria go. Don't keep
your toothbrush in your bathroom, so says our friend's girlfriend. UM,
let's see before we say anything like listener mail or
go find this article. I want to do a quick
(26:58):
shout out. Okay, do it. Our Chiva team Chuck recently
hit a very significant milestone one point five million dollars
in loans. Wow, that's enormous. Say it? Oh yeah, Kiva
Kiva dot organs a micro lending site where you can
make loans and little twenty five dollar increments to people
(27:21):
in the developing world to use for entrepreneurship. To um
have their taxi license, to buy oxen, to retail clothes,
what have you, um farming whatever, and um our Chiva
team has doled out one point five million in these
twenty five dollar loans. That's just such an amazing accomplishment.
(27:43):
When we started this, we had no idea that it
was gonna have legs like this. Yeah, and I mean
we're gonna keep it going perpetuity, so we are. One
of the reasons I wanted to shout out is because
we are resetting our goals. We're setting our goal to
two million dollars by the summer solstice June one. It's
an international date, right um and Glenn, the team leader
(28:05):
at CIVA, came up with this, and I think it's
a sound idea. Yeah, thank you to Glenn and Sonia
as always. So we're going to UH two million by
June twenty one. And if you want to join us
in this, we are not the least bit exclusive. For
a very inclusive and welcoming group of people, you can
go to UM www, dot kiva, k I v A
(28:26):
dot org, slash team slash stuff you should know, okay,
and if you want to know anything more about the
five second rule, type five second rule in the search bar,
how stuff works dot com, I said search bar. So
it's time for listener mails it is Josh. Uh, this
is we are just a few days away from our
TV show premiere. That when we would be remiss. I
know you're probably tired of hearing about it by now,
(28:47):
I'm not We would be remiss if we didn't remind
everyone that on Saturday night at ten pm Eastern on
Science Jail, you're going to get two episodes of Stuff
You Should Know, back to back, the premiere episode two
following the season premiere of Ricky Gervais's Idiot Abroad. Yeah
with Carl Pilkington. That comes on first, and then we
(29:08):
come on at ten with two brand new the first
two episodes of Stuff you Should Know the TV show.
That's right, And if you do not have cable, if
you're not, because as we have announced, you can purchase
these episodes on iTunes after they are released the next day.
And because we love everyone so much in the world,
you can get the premiere episode for free on iTunes.
(29:29):
So just seek it out, download it, watch it and
make some noise over its Science channel and on Twitter too.
Um and uh we think we think you're gonna like it.
It's uh us and we play ourselves, but it's setting
like a kind of a fictionalized version of the office,
our office, and um there's podcasting and action and adventure
(29:51):
and all sorts of goodness, so it should be hopefully
everybody likes it. Yea. As we have said before, it's
the real US in a fictional world. The spelling factual information.
Yes that's a red tagline. All right. I hope you
stuck around for this will sermail because it's pretty good.
This is from Ben. Uh. Guys, my name has been
I'm a thirty year old husband and father. Never consider
(30:12):
myself a very smart man. I did mediocre in high school.
Uh not because of lack of trying, but because being
viewed as a lazy student and I was just socially
awkward to be honest. My wife has talked me into
catching up with your podcast, and since then I've gotten
a smartphone and done so. And all I can say
is thank you, guys, from the bottom of my heart. Um,
it just helped me become a better husband and father.
(30:35):
Let me explain. After high school, I became a father
to a beautiful boy with an ex girlfriend who was
not the best person. Due to some heart complications, my
son Logan passed away four days after his first birthday.
This resulted in me not following through with college, shutting
down emotionally, basically becoming angry at the world and God
for my son's passing. To put it bluntly, I became
(30:56):
someone who I said I never would become. It was
full of hate. Years that followed in my life was
just gray as I went through the motions of life.
Things turned around when I met my wife Jordan's, got
married and had our son rating and yes I didn't
name him Radin after Mortal Kombat. Uh. And then I
was turned on your podcast after listening to over two
hundred of them, you two have opened a hard spot
(31:17):
in my heart. After listening to you guys and hearing
how good natured you are, I myself have been trying
to give everything in life a fair chance and have
become more of a good Harvard person who no longer
battles something bad within myself. I know right, I'm happier
in life than ever before. And I have my wife
and son and now Chuck and Josh to thank for helping.
(31:40):
I'm trying to further my education. I can't stop reading
and learning, and I save your show. So when my
one year old son is old enough he can experience
something that changes daddy's life for the better, just like
he and his mommy did. Uh So, I can't thank
you guys enough for all you've done without even knowing it.
Sometimes all it takes is good hearts and a good
podcast to make even a small difference. The guys are
(32:02):
even Ohio, I would like to write a book a
drink that is from Ben children man, Ben, thank you
for that. We're not even trying. I did. I read
this stuff and I'm just like, are you kidding me?
That's pretty cool? What are you supposed to say to that?
Thank you? So thanks Ben. Um. If you want to
get in touch with chucking me about five second rule,
(32:24):
how about this. We want to know the nastiest thing
you've ever eaten, whether it was something that was prepared,
something that touched the ground, tell us tell us your
nasty eating story. Yeah, and if you're one of those kids.
I had friends in elementary school that would have like
gross eating contests, that would like throw mashed potatoes on
the floor and then eat them. I explored that once.
I was like, you know what, maybe maybe I am
(32:46):
that kid. Let's let's find out and I ate a
sticker that was on the ground with some hairitas to it,
and I was like, no, I need to keep seeking
my persona because that one not me. Yeah, yeah, well
we want to know about them, right that. I can't
believe you held out me that one. That story. Tweet
to us at s Y s K Podcast, join us
(33:06):
on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and
as always, you can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
(33:28):
M brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota
Camry
Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry.
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant's consulting his note, he's
wearing his glasses. Everybody's getting ready to podcast. So that
(00:22):
means just the stuff, you know, stretching, doing my yoga.
You just pet for the fourth time in the last hour,
got more coffee and you think a lot of coffee.
Well that was exciting. Yeah, And while I was getting coffee,
I was like, I used my elbow to press the
buttons to make coffee. Are you doing that now? Um?
I have become I'm trying to think back to what
(00:45):
initiated it, but I've definitely become far more germ conscious.
I'm not a germophobe because I can just be like,
oh god, you know that's fine. You your fingers touched
your mouth, Stop simpering, right, Like I can get ahold
of myself like that. But at the same time, you
know what it is. It was that it was flesh
(01:06):
eating bacteria when it was going around Georgia for a
little while, and then simultaneously like being aware that, like
the gym is lousy with germs, and I think that
that did a one two number on me, and all
of a sudden, I'm just very I'm very aware of
what I touch. I'm not super germ conscious. I have
been more so though, since we've started learning more about
(01:28):
this crap um. But we have a mutual friend whose
girlfriend won't even keep her toothbrush in the bathroom. Oh really,
she said, why would I among the fecal air? Why
would I keep my toothbrush in the bathroom? Makes sense?
And uh, she knows who she is. I don't know
(01:48):
who she is. I'll tell you after. Um, so you're
kind of you're okay with it, You're okay with the
idea of germs. I mean, there is this whole there's
this whole thing called the hygiene hypothesis, which makes uttering
complete sense to me that if you're allow more germs
and you'll just learn to fight them and have more
robust immune systems. Yes, especially growing up as a child
(02:11):
and the children who develop allergies, it's because they are
raised in a sterile lisol environment. My environment was a filthy,
dirty and and so when they finally get out into
this very filthy, dirty world e g um preschool. They are,
they don't have any anybodies built up for it. It
makes a lot of sense. I don't know that there's
(02:32):
any hard science that backs it up, but I don't
know that it's ever been disproven. But it's called the
hygiene hypothesis. It appeals to me. It apeels to me.
I I don't have allergies. I don't get sick that much. No,
and I'm unhealthy as it gets. I wouldn't call you that. No,
I'm in the middle. Yes, I appreciate that. Okay, I guess. Really,
(02:54):
the division line between a germophobe in a non germophobe
would probably be found somewhere in the five second rule
when don't you think? Sure? So, like if I dropped something,
depending on what it was and where I dropped it,
I would possibly eat it. There's a there's a comedian
(03:14):
here in Atlanta. It's pretty good. His names no Garden Schwartz.
And he's saying that, Yeah, it means Noah black Garden,
I think and uh. He was saying that, Um, the
five second role is basically exists on a sliding scale,
Like if it's a piece of broccoli, it's like a
zero second. If it's like a cheeto, it's like a
(03:38):
whenever I find it rule. Whenever I find it, pick
it up and eat it. Role Um. He does it
way better than me. But he had a great observation
about the five second rule. The point is for me,
it depends on what it is where it is, not
really even how long it's been there. I mean, if
if it's because there's so long and it's under the
(03:58):
couch and there's like dust bun he's accumulated on it,
I won't eat it. No, no, no, you wouldn't eat
anything that you didn't recently drop, would you. If you
just found a cookie on the floor, you would eat it. Again,
it depends on where where it was found. Like some
places seem far cleaner to me than others, like mine
(04:22):
and Humian's apartment is very very clean. So if it
fell and was just slightly under the couch, yeah yeah,
I would, Yeah, I'd eat it. It depends. I mean,
if it were a piece of salami or something, I wouldn't.
But there were like a very dry cookie, perhaps am
a good potato chip that wasn't stale yet. It's very clean.
(04:46):
I would blow it off and eat it. Yeah, I would. Um,
since we're talking about our sliding scales, I would eat
nothing that I didn't recently drop, unless it was a
if it was like a little bit sweets, Um the King,
they're canny, bar the King. If I found one of
those that I had just forgotten that was under my couch,
(05:08):
unwrapped on the floor, I would eat that, no matter
how long it had been there. I would maybe rinse
it off, or I would melt it down or in
reform it or do something deconstructed. That's what I would
do that. Um. You know, they released a box a
selection of caramels called stuff you Should Eat a little
(05:29):
Bit Sweets and it says specifically on their website that
that's in honor of us. Thank you listen jin Um. Okay.
So I feel like we've gone in depth on what
we'd do with the five second rule. The question still remains, Chuck,
is it Is it viable? Is that a real thing?
Like if you if you are an adherent to the
five second rule and you're like, I'm a very clean person.
(05:52):
I only eat stuff that's been on the floor for
five seconds or less. Are you full of it. Well,
you're sort of full of it, You're totally full of it.
There's a high school student, uh in two thousand three,
Jillian Clark and um she was doing her internship at
UH fighting l I and I of the University of Illinois,
(06:12):
and she said, you know what, we should do a
little study because it's the old wives tale about the
five second rule. And she coated, um, these tiles with E. Coli,
which is really gross, and dropped cookies and gummy bears
and things onto the surface for certain amounts of time,
and then studied what kind of bacteria picked up. And
of course, no matter how long had they been down there,
(06:33):
bacteria did jump onto the food within five seconds. What
is important to point out, though, is the long you
left it there, the more it picked up. So the
five seconds are under is important. Like it's usually not
five seconds for me. If I drop a piece of food,
I've got it back within my hand in like two seconds.
I've seen it. You're like like a ninja. And it
matters because the longest they are, the more bacteria's gonna
(06:55):
pick up. Right, yeah, yeah, um, So Jillian Clark just
did this very initial, preliminary investigation. But she was a
pioneer and received the two thousand four Ignoble Prize for
Public Health for her efforts. Yeah. Um, and so she
kind of she established this trail. She blazed the trail. Uh.
(07:16):
And then about four years later, some Clemson University researchers
really kind of dug in to figure out what was
going on with this five second rule and built on
Clark's work. Tigers. Yeah, I mean, we gotta say it.
I don't feel like we do. Screw you tigers. Um,
(07:37):
all right, So what did they found out? They found out, Well,
if you thought that the same thing, right, if you
thought the E. Coli bacteria and the tiles was gross,
I know where you're going. These guys created a broth
of sam and ella. They call it samuela soup, which
is so nasty. Yeah. And they they applied it to
three different types of material because I mean, like sure,
maybe five seconds you're gonna get some bacteria on it.
(07:59):
But what if what doesn't it depend on the kind
of food? Doesn't it depend on the kind of surface
that comes in contact with So these investigators their pros
they were at Clemson. Um, they applied to salmonella soup
to tile, wood surface and carpet, right, and then they
started dropping bread and bologny on it. Good choice, why not? Um?
(08:22):
And they they found what Clark found that in less
than five seconds, no matter how short the time, but
there was a bacterial transfer. Yeah, between a hundred and
fifty and eight thousand bacteria if under five seconds. And
consider this with salmonella, you only need ten individual bacterium
too for what's called it infectious dose. Okay, so that
(08:46):
is five seconds or under. If he left it down
there for a minute, it was gonna be ten times that.
And um, there are ten strains of salmonella not I mean,
besides just the bacteria, it's there's a lot of stuff
going on down there on your floor, most notably poopo. Yeah,
that's another thing to everywhere. But you should you should
(09:07):
take your shoes off. My wife is of Japanese ancestry,
and things I definitely picked up from hers, like you
take your shoes off when you come in the house,
so you just walk around without shoes on all the
all the time, or slippers or something. Yeah, because like,
especially if you're germ conscious, man, if you go into
a public bathroom and you walk out of there, you're
the bottom of your shoes are just like a nightmare.
(09:29):
You do want to track that all over your house
because you may find a cookie on your couch that
you want to eat. You have to plan for the
future basically, and that starts of taking your shoes off
in your house. For some reason, I don't think the
Japanese culture is rooted in the hopes that you'll find
a cookie on your floor and be able to eat it. No,
maybe not, but they are big into taking the shoes.
My friend Jason and in Tokyo that he is married
(09:50):
to a woman in Keiko, and years ago when we're
living in Athens, they started that tradition of removing your
shoes and he was like, hey, you mind, I was like,
of course not, watch this, what's it? Well? Sometimes they
will even provide like slippers and stuff for guests, Like
if you're in a Japanese home, so you're still wearing
shoes in there. But I get the point that I've
(10:10):
never left your house, so that's the deal. Yes, And
I don't like I'm old environment, You're all good. Yeah,
And I won't wear my slippers in the bathroom either.
I gotta tell you. I just got some new slippers.
What do you go barefoot in there? The bather socks
or whatever? Yeah, but like I don't want to burn
the socks I cut my feet off. I bought some
(10:31):
new slippers. Dude. I'm not usually wanted to plug things
on the air. But if you're a grown man and
you want some the best slippers you've ever had, and
you don't mind throwing down little cash men slippers, my friend,
what do you think I wear? I wonder if they're
the same ones. They are like little loafer sort of swede.
Mine don't have a back. They just have this soul
(10:52):
back and they had like the hard bottom. So you
can go out and get in the mail or if
you're me, go to the grocery store. Man, so comfortable
and all the what is it uh or whatever? It's
not it's called sirpa lining. Oh is it? Yeah? The
sheep shear, that's what. That's what some people call it.
(11:14):
So cozy. Okay, so slippers. I need to start plugging
these things and giving them for free. I'm a sucker.
Always buy them and then plug them, right, But it's
not a sucker. Chuck here above the boards, okay, Um,
so back to it. Oh so the longer the stuff
stayed in contact the more the more it was the
(11:34):
more bacteria that came upon it. But surprisingly, what they
found was that the transfer was the least for carpet.
The type of surface that came in contact with made
a difference. I thought it was the most for carpet
was the least. It was the least transferred, but the
stuff survived in the carpet longer, so it all washed out.
(11:56):
So it made some difference, but not really whether it's wood,
tylor carpet, when you dropped something on it, there's going
to be a a lot of bacteria transfer. But this
stuff survives on these services. Carpet, you're kind of like, okay, yeah,
there's a lot to it. There's pile and you know,
there's some sort of Berber factor and all that. Um,
you can't forget the Berber factory, right. Uh So, of
(12:17):
course carpet, that's not much of surprised that there's a
lot of bacteria in there, but would or tile. Not
only did they find that, like the stuff can survive
for a while, it survives for up to a month
a month after they put the stuff on there, a
month later, there was still living bacteria enough for an
infectious dose on all three surfaces. D That's okay, I'm
(12:42):
becoming more of a drama fobe. And yeah, we're all
turning into David Putty right now. And remember he and
Peggy who called Elaine Suze Susie. They both turned out
to be germa phobes. They had like a little back acteria. Yeah.
Remember Cramer made a radish rose in his shower. He
(13:07):
had a garbage disposal in his shower so he could
bathe at the same time. It was that episode. Um so,
I know earlier you mentioned, um it's just kind of
off handedly said. You know, if it's something dry like
a cookie or that actually makes a difference. You found
out that moisture can be the key to more bacteria transfer. Um,
(13:28):
So a dry cookie versus a piece of like wet
bologna or salami or moist bologny. I said moist bologny, Um,
we'll have more bacteria. And that's why they say when
you go to the restroom and you wash your hands,
the drying is just as important, not more important, than
the watching. Yeah, they found that, um, this transfer bacteria
(13:49):
seems to be facilitated by moisture. Right, so when you
touch something with your wet hands, you're gonna get a
bunch of a bunch of bacteria transferred onto your hands.
If you wash your hands and then use one of
those hands free paper towels spencers and dry your hands,
you can touch that same surface that you would have
touched with your wet hands, and you're gonna have far
less bacteria transferred to it. Yeah, or nowadays the air
(14:10):
dryers in the bathroom. Have have you noticed in the
past few years or just like for fifty years it
was the same air dryer. Oh no, there's the accelerator.
Now there's the accelerator and the Dyson blade dryer. I
like the accelerator because the Dicon blade you have to
stick your hands down in there like that, and it's
almost like playing operation, like it's almost impossible not want
to touch the side, and then like, what's what does
(14:32):
anyone clean the bottom of those things? Like? I don't
think so. The accelerator, it's all just like blowing your
hands and you're you're done, and it's you cannot touch
things more. I like the accelerator because the the way
it makes your skin ripple, like the g forces is
pretty amazing, like we were in the indoor sky diving
through Yeah, exactly. And let's let's talk about hands real quick, chuck.
(14:54):
So there's a study that came out of the University
of Colorado at Boulder and UM they found some really
surprising things using this technique called metagenomics where they take
a swab of like a sample off of your hands,
and then rather than doing culture, they do basically a
DNA profile for everything found in that swab. What they find, well,
(15:17):
they did fifty one participants. They found different bacteria species
across the fifty one participants. UM. And what what I
found was particularly interesting. They found that UM, only five
percent of these species were found in all fifty one participants. No,
(15:38):
five period not even percent. Oh yeah, five periods. So
out of all these species only when we're sharing. So
that means we there's just way more out there than
we thought, I guess huh. And it's just luck of
the draw as to what leaps to your hands, I
guess so. And not only your hands, but specific hands too.
They found that the right and left palms of a
single person share at only seventeen percent of the bacterial species,
(16:04):
so that means there's different species on different hands of
the same person. That's weird. And then women tend to
have a higher diversity of bacteria on their hands than men.
Not necessarily more uh bacteria total, but more diversity among species. Interesting.
So depending on which hand you shake, you're going to
(16:25):
be getting a different type of bacteria from someone. Yeah.
And if somebody like shakes your hands like, oh, it's
just water, I washed my hand, punch them in the
head because you're that's bacterial transfer. Jerk dry your hands. Yeah.
And uh and since you mentioned women, um, I think
the study by the Girl in two thousand three found
that women are more likely to eat something off the
(16:47):
floor than men, which surprised me. What surprised me is
where the person who wrote this article got that. I
couldn't find it anything. I saw that women were more
familiar with the concept of the five second rule, but
that not that they used it more. Yeah, you know what,
I'm gonna call that a dubious statement, then dubious indeed. Uh, okay,
so you've eaten something off of the floor, are we
(17:09):
get on hands? Yeah? Thanks for that, okay. I like
in the article they pointed out that out of the
fifty one participants, there were a hundred and two hands. Yeah,
this is like, all right, so good. You didn't have
any amputees in the study, right. What was funny is
I was I didn't think it added up, and then
I realized that's why I stopped for a second a
minute again. Um, all right, so you've picked up a
cookie off of the floor. It's dry, it's been down
(17:32):
there for three seconds, and you think, you know what,
I'm gonna roll the dice and eat it because my
stomach acids and the acids and my saliva is gonna
kill all this stuff factor fiction. That is fiction. That
is very much fiction. So says Uh, the germ guru
of the University of Arizona, go, what are the wildcats?
(17:53):
It's sun devils. There's the Arizona State. It's Arizona State,
Arizona's wildcats. Cats go wildcats. Charles Gerba, his name almost
looks like germ yeah close or Gerber closer than Clark,
Like he's the adult version of the Gerber baby. So
he says that UH virus is actually UH survived the
(18:13):
low pH In fact, a lot of them like it,
and that pretty much any bacteria that you can infect
your intestine with is going to stay alive long enough
to get to your intestine, right, It's gonna survive that
that acidity in your stomach. Yeah, look, look look for
a podcast on digestion. That was a good one man.
That was great if you want to learn how that works. Um,
(18:33):
And it does make a difference on where it's landed,
like you said, Um, some floors are more dangerous than others.
In bathrooms are the worst place on earth. Yeah, and
kitchens actually, kitchens are the worst. There's supposedly dirtier than bathrooms.
It depends on the bathroom. But yeah. Gerba points out
that of all the shoes that he's ever analyzed, and
this guy like runs around on Good Morning America in
(18:56):
the Today Show and like analyze this stuff and just
freaks people out. It's like kind of his for his trade. Yeah. Uh,
he said that the fecal matter appears on about of
the shoes he's ever analyzed. Of course it does. Yeah,
like I said, there's poop everywhere, poop everywhere, especially in
my house. So uh yeah, you'd think of public restrooms
(19:18):
pretty bad, and it is, but it depends on what
part of the public restroom you're talking about, and sometimes
compared to other places that it doesn't hold a candle.
There's some surprising germ statistics that were about to unleash
on you. Let's start with uh, let's just jump all over.
Then I got the kitchen floor. UM, the area on
(19:39):
the kitchen floor just in front of your sink. We're
gonna be doing your dishes and dropping food and poop.
UM has more bacteria than your trash can square inch
as opposed to four eleven, So double um and your
kitchen sponge. I know everyone knows that that's a really
filthy thing to have. You remember that one serry but filthy.
(20:01):
Remember the I think the Chlorox wipes or Lightsol wipes
commercial where the lady was using a sponge or like,
if you're using a sponge, you might as we'll be
doing this and she was just rubbing like a raw
chicken breast on her counter like it was a sponge.
That's basically true, though, It's like you you should be
really careful with your sponge, what you clean with it,
what you don't clean with it, um, the letting it
(20:21):
dry out, changing it like regularly, like if you've got
a two month old kitchen sponge and you're using that
to wipe your counter. You were spreading bacteria all over
the blaze. You don't love your family, so you can
use it at first. This is what I do, because
I'm a clean guy. My wife is not. I will
clean up after her with a sponge, and then I'll
go back with my organic spray and then do the
(20:44):
paper towel wipe after that. That's the final step in
the process. As always. The dry paper towel with my
seventh seven stuff is what I used. And then a
little bit of lighter fluid yep, sterilized the counter. All right,
So you're kitchen floor is dirtier than your trash can.
Your sponge holds sixty times more bacteria than your pet
(21:06):
food bowl, even though pet food bowls are pretty gross too,
supposedly because you don't claim out as much. And all
of this is germier than a toilet seat. Yeah, you
always hear that, the old toilet seat. Yeah, And I
think the reason why the toilet seat is surprisingly cleaner
in comparison, or or surprisingly germ free compared to other
(21:30):
things like your kitchen sink and all that is because
people clean the toilet seat more frequently because they think
of it as a dirty place. And this is kind
of borne out in another study that Gerba carried out
on behalf of the Chlorox Corporation, who make lights all
wipes UM, and he found that one of the dirtiest
places in the universe is a person's desk. And he
(21:52):
found that UM apparently the average desk has a hundred
times more bacteria than a kitchen table and four hundred
times more bacteria than the average toilet. And one of
the reasons is because people don't ever wipe this down.
So he did the study where he divided workers into
two groups. One group used the sanitizing wipes once or
twice a day, and then the other group didn't, and
(22:14):
after two days there was a ninety nine point nine
percent reduction in bacteria on the desk of the people
who are using the wipe. So wiping down your telephone, handset,
your dead mouse is a big one keyboard apparently, where
you typically rest your hand on your desk minds on
my mouse, UM has about ten million bacteria on average. UM.
(22:35):
But he also found that over the course of a day,
if you don't wipe your stuff down, you actually increase
your bacteria from nineteen to thirty one on telephone, mouse, keyboard,
desktop services throughout a day, it increases that much more. Man,
I haven't cleaned my desk in so long. It's been
a while for me too. I don't use the phone
though I don't either. Yeah, I don't even know my
(22:57):
number to give out. And and anytimes if some but
he asked for, I'm like, just email, Yeah, that's what
I do. Um. Molly Edmunds, the former co host of
Stuff Mom Never Told You Back in the day, she
wrote about cubicle death and specifically germs in the workplace,
like we were just talking about and um, she points
(23:18):
out that and if you're a restaurant and you have
more than seven hundred bacteria per square inch, you're gonna
be considered unsanitary. But you will come into contact with
ten million bacteria day in your office. And statistics like
people eat at their desk and don't clean. I eat
at my desk occasionally. I don't clean of people, uh,
(23:42):
only occasionally will wipe down their work area. And um,
your desktop itself, not the computer desktop, but your desk.
It's for me a hundred times germany or than a
kitchen table and four hundred again four hundred times Germany,
or than a toilet seat and presentee is um, which
is a big problem. Uh of workers, I'm sorry. One
(24:06):
third of workers that's not sev it's close reported to
the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases that they felt like
they were obligated to go to work even when they
were sick. Yeah, that's it's a problem. It's not okay.
And I know around here, especially Tracy Are she takes
it pretty serious. She's like she gets piste off on
(24:29):
people in here. Ye. Yeah, she'll say, if you're sick,
please stay home, um, because the office is dirty, your
bathrooms dirty, your kitchen's dirty. That cutting board that you're
cutting your vegetables on filthy. Yeah, it's all dirty, it's
all gross. Well, I can't remember. I was trying to
think of what episode biofilm came up. You were telling
(24:49):
everybody about biofilm. Oh, yeah, what was that? I can't
for the life of me remember. But um, that's how
bacteria survive. That's how they can survive on stainless steel.
That's how the it can survive on wood, on tile,
on nonpoorous surfaces, on synthetic surfaces that are designed to
keep bacteria from thriving. These things can survive because they
(25:11):
live in biofilm. It's this protective um film on any surface.
And if the surface has grooves or things like that
that where a biofilm can hide, there's gonna be a
lot more bacteria. And cutting board apparently is one of
those great examples, especially a wood cutting board, I think,
which I prefer me too clean and well though, yeah,
(25:32):
because I'd rather have some bacteria in my food than
like shards of plastic, you know. Yeah, that's a good point. Um,
So before you freak out and jump in a pool
of pure l most of these germs are benign. Like
we've quoted all these tens of thousands and millions of
germs and things, most of urbanign, and your body is
gonna take care of most of it too. But it
(25:54):
only takes like you know, when you find yourself retching
over the toilet with a stomach irs, it might have
just been one little bacteria that got through. And all
it takes is ten for Salmonello to gets you in
a hundred for E. Coli ten ten little guys the
bottom of a woman's purse randomly, uh, Gerba again just
(26:18):
ran up to some people. He's like, let me test
your purse, and he found UM from the hundreds to
six point seven million on the bottom of one woman's purse.
And he didn't say that that also had like pieces
of pot pie. Then there were probably reasons, but I
think that was one. That's a good thing to go
(26:38):
out on. Took you to good bye, reassuring everybody that
as long as your immune system is in order, you're
probably okay as far as these bacteria go. Don't keep
your toothbrush in your bathroom, so says our friend's girlfriend. UM,
let's see before we say anything like listener mail or
go find this article. I want to do a quick
(26:58):
shout out. Okay, do it. Our Chiva team Chuck recently
hit a very significant milestone one point five million dollars
in loans. Wow, that's enormous. Say it? Oh yeah, Kiva
Kiva dot organs a micro lending site where you can
make loans and little twenty five dollar increments to people
(27:21):
in the developing world to use for entrepreneurship. To um
have their taxi license, to buy oxen, to retail clothes,
what have you, um farming whatever, and um our Chiva
team has doled out one point five million in these
twenty five dollar loans. That's just such an amazing accomplishment.
(27:43):
When we started this, we had no idea that it
was gonna have legs like this. Yeah, and I mean
we're gonna keep it going perpetuity, so we are. One
of the reasons I wanted to shout out is because
we are resetting our goals. We're setting our goal to
two million dollars by the summer solstice June one. It's
an international date, right um and Glenn, the team leader
(28:05):
at CIVA, came up with this, and I think it's
a sound idea. Yeah, thank you to Glenn and Sonia
as always. So we're going to UH two million by
June twenty one. And if you want to join us
in this, we are not the least bit exclusive. For
a very inclusive and welcoming group of people, you can
go to UM www, dot kiva, k I v A
(28:26):
dot org, slash team slash stuff you should know, okay,
and if you want to know anything more about the
five second rule, type five second rule in the search bar,
how stuff works dot com, I said search bar. So
it's time for listener mails it is Josh. Uh, this
is we are just a few days away from our
TV show premiere. That when we would be remiss. I
know you're probably tired of hearing about it by now,
(28:47):
I'm not We would be remiss if we didn't remind
everyone that on Saturday night at ten pm Eastern on
Science Jail, you're going to get two episodes of Stuff
You Should Know, back to back, the premiere episode two
following the season premiere of Ricky Gervais's Idiot Abroad. Yeah
with Carl Pilkington. That comes on first, and then we
(29:08):
come on at ten with two brand new the first
two episodes of Stuff you Should Know the TV show.
That's right, And if you do not have cable, if
you're not, because as we have announced, you can purchase
these episodes on iTunes after they are released the next day.
And because we love everyone so much in the world,
you can get the premiere episode for free on iTunes.
(29:29):
So just seek it out, download it, watch it and
make some noise over its Science channel and on Twitter too.
Um and uh we think we think you're gonna like it.
It's uh us and we play ourselves, but it's setting
like a kind of a fictionalized version of the office,
our office, and um there's podcasting and action and adventure
(29:51):
and all sorts of goodness, so it should be hopefully
everybody likes it. Yea. As we have said before, it's
the real US in a fictional world. The spelling factual information.
Yes that's a red tagline. All right. I hope you
stuck around for this will sermail because it's pretty good.
This is from Ben. Uh. Guys, my name has been
I'm a thirty year old husband and father. Never consider
(30:12):
myself a very smart man. I did mediocre in high school.
Uh not because of lack of trying, but because being
viewed as a lazy student and I was just socially
awkward to be honest. My wife has talked me into
catching up with your podcast, and since then I've gotten
a smartphone and done so. And all I can say
is thank you, guys, from the bottom of my heart. Um,
it just helped me become a better husband and father.
(30:35):
Let me explain. After high school, I became a father
to a beautiful boy with an ex girlfriend who was
not the best person. Due to some heart complications, my
son Logan passed away four days after his first birthday.
This resulted in me not following through with college, shutting
down emotionally, basically becoming angry at the world and God
for my son's passing. To put it bluntly, I became
(30:56):
someone who I said I never would become. It was
full of hate. Years that followed in my life was
just gray as I went through the motions of life.
Things turned around when I met my wife Jordan's, got
married and had our son rating and yes I didn't
name him Radin after Mortal Kombat. Uh. And then I
was turned on your podcast after listening to over two
hundred of them, you two have opened a hard spot
(31:17):
in my heart. After listening to you guys and hearing
how good natured you are, I myself have been trying
to give everything in life a fair chance and have
become more of a good Harvard person who no longer
battles something bad within myself. I know right, I'm happier
in life than ever before. And I have my wife
and son and now Chuck and Josh to thank for helping.
(31:40):
I'm trying to further my education. I can't stop reading
and learning, and I save your show. So when my
one year old son is old enough he can experience
something that changes daddy's life for the better, just like
he and his mommy did. Uh So, I can't thank
you guys enough for all you've done without even knowing it.
Sometimes all it takes is good hearts and a good
podcast to make even a small difference. The guys are
(32:02):
even Ohio, I would like to write a book a
drink that is from Ben children man, Ben, thank you
for that. We're not even trying. I did. I read
this stuff and I'm just like, are you kidding me?
That's pretty cool? What are you supposed to say to that?
Thank you? So thanks Ben. Um. If you want to
get in touch with chucking me about five second rule,
(32:24):
how about this. We want to know the nastiest thing
you've ever eaten, whether it was something that was prepared,
something that touched the ground, tell us tell us your
nasty eating story. Yeah, and if you're one of those kids.
I had friends in elementary school that would have like
gross eating contests, that would like throw mashed potatoes on
the floor and then eat them. I explored that once.
I was like, you know what, maybe maybe I am
(32:46):
that kid. Let's let's find out and I ate a
sticker that was on the ground with some hairitas to it,
and I was like, no, I need to keep seeking
my persona because that one not me. Yeah, yeah, well
we want to know about them, right that. I can't
believe you held out me that one. That story. Tweet
to us at s Y s K Podcast, join us
(33:06):
on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and
as always, you can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
(33:28):
M brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota
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