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