September 29, 2018 • 34 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):
M Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's
s Y s K Selects, I've chosen this episode on
the five second rule, and I want to point out
that my opinion on what constitutes something that can be
eaten off of the floor has narrowed dramatically since this
episode came out in January of two. And I was
also surprised to figure out how many of my um
(00:23):
cleanliness habits actually came from researching this episode. Maybe it'll
have some sort of positive impact on you too. Who knows.
There's only one way to find out, and that is
to enjoy this episode. Thank you. Welcome to Stuff you
Should Know from house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
(00:51):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck
Bryant's consulting his notes, he's wearing his classes. Everybody's getting
ready to podcast. So that this stuff, you know, stretching,
doing my yoga. You just pat for the fourth time
in the last hour, got more coffee and drink a
lot of coffee. But that was exciting. Yeah, And while
(01:13):
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 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
(01:36):
I can get ahold of myself like that. But at
the same time, you know what it is. It was
that it was flesh 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. Yeah, I'm not
(02:00):
super germ conscious. I have been more so though since
we've started learning more about this crap um. But we
have a mutual friend whose girlfriend won't even keep her
toothbrush in the bathroom. Oh really, Yeah, she said, why
would I among the fecal air? Why would I keep
(02:20):
my toothbrush in the bathroom? Makes sense? Yeah, And uh,
she knows who she is. I don't know 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
(02:41):
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 and the children who
develop allergies, it's because they are raised in a sterile
lisol environment. My environment was filthy, dirty, and and so
when they finally get out into this very filthy an
the world e g Um preschool, Yeah, they are. They
(03:05):
don't have any anybody's built up for it. It makes
a lot of sense. I don't know that there's any
hard science that backs it up, but I don't know
that it's ever been disproven. But that's called the hygiene
hypods It appeals to me. It appeals to me. I'm
not 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,
(03:25):
I'm in the middle. Yes, I appreciate that. Okay, I
guess really 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
(03:45):
I dropped it, I would possibly eat it. There's a
there's a comedian here in Atlanta. It's pretty good. It
names no Garden Schwartz and he's saying, yeah, yeah, it
means Noah Black Garden, I think and uh. He was
saying that, Um, the five second role is basically exists
(04:07):
on a sliding scale. Like if it's a piece of broccoli,
it's like a zero second agreed. If it's like a cheeto,
it's like a whenever I find it rule. Whenever I
find it, pick it up and eat it. Roll. Um.
He does it way better than me. But he had
a great observation about the five second role. The point
is for me, it depends on what it is where
(04:30):
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 couch and there's like dust bunnies 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
(04:52):
was found. Like some places seem far cleaner to me
than other's, Like my in Numi's apartment is very very clean. Sure,
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 if it were like a very dry cookie,
(05:15):
perhaps they a good potato chip, Yeah, that wasn't stale yet,
it's very clean, 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
(05:37):
sweets Um the King, they're candy bar the King. If
I found one of those that I had just forgotten
that was under my couch, 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.
(05:58):
That's why I would do that. Um, you know, they
released a box a selection of caramels called stuff you
Should Eat a little Bit Sweet stuyah, and it says
specifically on their website that that's in honor of us.
Thank you, listen jen Um. Okay, So I feel like
we've gone in depth on what we do with the
five second rule. The question still remains, Chuck, is it?
(06:22):
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. 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
(06:45):
the UH fighting L I and I of the University
of Illinois, 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 coded, um, these
tiles with E. Coli, which is really gross, and drop
cookies and gummy bears and things onto the surface for
certain amounts of time and then studied what kind of
(07:06):
bacteria picked up And of course no matter how long
have they been down there, 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
(07:28):
like a like a ninja. And it matters because the
longest they are, the more bacteria it's gonna 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
(07:51):
blazed the trail. Uh. And then about four years later,
some closing 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. Okay,
screw you, tigers. Um, all right, so what did they
(08:15):
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, and where you're going.
These guys created a broth of salmonella. They call it
salmonella 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
(08:36):
on it. 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, would surface and carpet, right, and
then they started dropping bread and bologny on it. Good choice,
(08:58):
why not? Um? And they they found what Clark found
that in less than five seconds, no matter how short
at 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 an infectious dose. Okay,
(09:22):
so that is five seconds or under. If he left
it down there for a minute, it was going to
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 poop on your shoes. Yeah, that's
another thing too, everywhere. But you should you should take
(09:44):
your shoes off. My wife is of Japanese ancestry, and
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. You don't want
(10:07):
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 with 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 bigging into taking their shoes. My friend
Jason and in Tokyo that he is married to a
(10:27):
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. 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 guess you point have never left your house, so
(10:49):
that's the deal. Yes, and I don't like wild 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 go barefoot in there? The
socks or whatever? Yeah, okay, but like I don't want
to burn the socks cut my feet. I bought some
new slippers. Dude. I'm not usually wanted to plug things
(11:11):
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 us men slippers,
my friend, what do you think I wear that we were? Yes,
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 have a back, and they
have like the hard bottom, so you can go out
(11:32):
and get in the mail or if you're me, go
to the grocery store. Man, it's so comfortable and all
the what is it upper or whatever, it's not as sharp.
It's called sharper lining. Oh is it? Yeah? The sheep
shear that's what That's what some people call it. So cozy. Okay,
(11:53):
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,
(12:25):
the longer the stuff stayed in contact the more the
more it was, the 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,
(12:50):
so it all washed out. So it made some difference,
but not really. Whether it's wood, tyler carpet, when you
drop 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.
(13:12):
Uh So, of course, Carpet, that's not much of a
surprise that there's a lot of bacteria in there. But
would or tile Not only do they find that, like
the stuff can survive for a while, it survives for
up to a month. A month after they put this
stuff on there, a month later there was still living
bacteria enough for an infectious dose on all three surfaces.
(13:35):
A dude, that's okay, I'm becoming more of a drama fobe.
And yeah, we're all turning into David Putty right now.
And yeah, remember he and Peggy who called Elaine Suze Susie.
They both turned out to be germaphobes. They had like
a little bacteria. Yeah, remember Cramer made a radish rose
(14:02):
in his shower. He had a garbage disposal in his
shower so he could remember 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, So a dry cookie
(14:25):
versus a piece of like wet bologna or salami or
moist bolognay 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, if not more important than the watching. Yeah,
they found that, um, this transfer bacteria seems to be
(14:45):
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 a surface that you would have touched with your
wet hands, and you're gonna have far less bacteria transferred
to it. Yea, or nowadays the air dryers in the bathroom,
(15:07):
have have you noticed in the past few years or
just like for fifty years, it was the same air dryer. Oh,
now there's the accelerator. Now there's the accelerator and the
Dyson blade dryer. I like the accelerator because the Dison
blade do you have to stick your hands down in
there like that and it's almost like playing operation, Like
it's almost impossible not to touch the side, and then like,
what's what does anyone clean the bottom of those things? Like?
(15:30):
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. It's true. 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 skydiving thing. Oh yeah, exactly. And let's talk
about hands real quick, chuck. So there's a study that
(15:51):
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, they did fifty one participants.
(16:15):
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, five period, not even percent.
(16:36):
Oh yeah, five period. 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 ye,
And it's just luck of the drawers 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 shared only seventeen percent
(16:57):
of the bacterial species, 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
(17:19):
hand you shake, you're going to be getting a different
type of bacteria from someone. Yeah. And if somebody like
shakes your hand is 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
(17:41):
are more likely to eat something off the floor than men,
which surprised me. What surprised me is where the person
who wrote this article got that. I couldn't find it.
Anyone didn't either. 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,
(18:02):
so you've eaten something off the floor? Are we 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,
it's just 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
(18:23):
minute ago. Um, all right, so you've picked up a
cookie off of the floor, it's dry, it's been down
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 going
to kill all this stuff factor fiction. That is fiction.
That is very much fiction. So says uh. The germ
(18:43):
guru of the University of Arizona, go, what are they? Wildcats?
Sun devils? Who's the Arizona State? That's Arizona State. Arizona's wildcats,
cats go wildcats. Charles Gerba, his name almost looks like germ,
yeah close or gerb closer than Clark. Like he's the
adult version of the Gerber baby. So he says that
(19:05):
uh virus is actually uh survived the 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 going to 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,
(19:29):
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
(19:51):
the Today Show and like analyze this stuff and just
freaks people out. It's like kind of his um, his trade. Yeah,
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
(20:14):
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
(20:35):
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 necessary but filthy.
(20:56):
Remember the I think the Clorox wipes or lights Al
wipes commerce Still where the lady was using a sponge
or like, if you're using a sponge, you might as
well 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
(21:16):
letting it 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 place. You don't love your family, so
you can use it at first, 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
(21:39):
the 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 sterilized the counter. All right,
So your kitchen floor is is dirtier than your trash can.
Your sponge holds sixty times more bacteria than your pet
(22:02):
food bowl, even though pet food bowls are pretty gross too,
supposedly because you don't clean them out as much. Sure,
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 surprisingly germ free compared to other
(22:25):
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 found that, um, apparently,
(22:50):
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 these sanitizing wipes once or twice a day, and
then the other group didn't, and after two days there
(23:11):
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, hands at your dead mouse
is a big one. Your mouse, you'll let your a
keyboard apparently where you typically rest your hand on your
desk minds on my mouse, um has about ten million
bacteria on average. UM. But he also found that over
(23:32):
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 surfaces. 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,
no one calls us. I don't even know my number
(23:53):
to give out, and and anytimes if somebody asked for
I'm like just email. Yeah, that's what I do. Um.
Molly At, 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 out that and
(24:14):
if you're a restaurant and you have more than seven
hundred bacteria per square inch, you're going to 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.
(24:34):
I don't clean of people, uh only occasionally will wipe
down their work area. And um, your desktop itself, not
the computer desktop, but your desk. It's a hundred times
Germany or than a kitchen table and four hunh again,
four hundred times Germany or than a toilet seat. And
(24:55):
presentee is um, which is a big problem. Uh se
shent of workers, I'm sorry. One third of workers that's
not 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
(25:16):
a problem. It's not okay. And I know around here,
especially Tracy are from she takes it pretty serious. She's
like she gets piste off. When people are in here sick,
she'll yell yeah, she'll say, if you're sick, please stay home. Um,
because the office is dirty, your bathrooms dirty, your kitchens dirty.
That cutting board that you're cutting your vegetables on filthy. Yeah,
(25:38):
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 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 they can survive on wood, on tile,
on non poor service is on synthetic surfaces that are
(26:02):
designed to keep bacteria from thriving. These things can survive
because they live in biofilm. Yeah, it's this protective um
film on any surface. And if a surface has grooves
or things like that that where a biofilm can hide,
there's going to be a lot more bacteria. And cutting
board apparently is one of those great examples, especially a
(26:23):
wood cutting board, I think, yeah, which I prefer me too.
Got a clean and well though, Yeah, because I'd rather
have some bacteria in my food than like shards of plastic.
You know. Yeah, it's a good point. Um, So before
(26:50):
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's going to take care
of most of it too. But it only takes like
you know, when you find yourself retching over the toilet
with a stomach virus, it might have just been one
(27:12):
little bacteria that got through, and all it takes is
ten for salmon alody gets you in a hundred for E. Coli,
ten ten little guys the bottom of a woman's purse randomly.
Uh Gerba again just ran up to some people and
he's like, let me test your purse. And he found
um from the hundreds to six point seven million on
(27:35):
the bottom of one woman's purse. And he didn't say
that that also had like pieces of pot pie, and like,
there are probably reasons, but I think that was that one.
That's a good thing to go out and took you
to goodbye, reassuring everybody that as long as your immune
system is in order, you're probably Okay, as far as
(27:56):
these bacteria go. Don't keep your toothbrush in your bathroom,
so says our friends care rn. UM. Let's see before
we say anything like listener mail or go find this article.
I want to do a quick shout out. Okay, do it.
Archiva team Chuck recently hit a very significant milestone. One
point five million dollars in loans. Wow. That's enormous. Not
(28:23):
say it? Oh? Yeah. Kiva the Kiva dot organism micro
lending site where you can make loans and little twenty
five dollar increments to people 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,
(28:45):
and um Archiva team has doled out one point five
million in these twenty five dollar loans. That's just such
an amazing accomplishment. Yeah. 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 perpect to it,
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
(29:08):
solstice June one. It's an international date, right, um and Glenn,
the team leader at Kiva, 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. We're a very inclusive and welcoming group of people.
(29:31):
You can go to UM www dot Kiva, k I
v a 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 house to folks dot com, I said search bar.
So it's time for listener mail. It is Josh. This
(29:52):
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,
I'm not We would be premiss if we didn't remind
everyone that on Saturday night at ten pm Eastern on
Science Channel, 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,
(30:16):
with Carl Pilkington. That comes on first, and then we
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, ifear not,
because as we have announced, you can purchase these episodes
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we love everyone so much in the world, you can
get the premiere episode for free on iTunes. So just
(30:40):
seek it out, download it, watch it and make some
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Um and uh we 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
(31:02):
and all sorts of goodness, so it should be Hopefully
everybody likes it. Yeah, as we have said before, it's
the real US in a fictional world, spelling factual information.
Yes that's a red tagline. All right. I hope you
stuck around for this listenermail 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 myself
(31:23):
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.
(31:46):
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
(32:07):
someone who I said I never would become. It was
full of hate. The 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, got
married and had our son, Raydon. And yes I didn't
name him Radin after Mortal Kombat, and then I was
turned on your podcast after listening to over two hundred
of them, you two have opened a hard spot in
(32:28):
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.
(32:50):
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. So. I can't thank you
guys enough for all I've done without even knowing it.
Sometimes all it takes is good hearts and a good
podcast to make even a small difference. If you guys
(33:12):
are Evan Ohio, I would like to play about the
drink that is from Ben children May and Ben thank
you for that. We're not even trying. I dude, I
read this stuff and I'm just like, are you kidding me?
That's pretty cool? Like 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
(33:33):
second rule, 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
(33:56):
maybe I am that kid. Let's let's find out. And
I ate a sticker that was on the ground was
some hair attached to it, and I was like, no,
I need to keep seeking my persona because that not me. Yeah. Wow, yeah,
well we want to know about them, right, Yeah. I
can't believe you held out I mean that long that story.
Tweet to us at s Y s K podcast, join
(34:16):
us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should Know,
and as always, you can send us an email for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it,
how stuff works, dot com
M Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's
s Y s K Selects, I've chosen this episode on
the five second rule, and I want to point out
that my opinion on what constitutes something that can be
eaten off of the floor has narrowed dramatically since this
episode came out in January of two. And I was
also surprised to figure out how many of my um
(00:23):
cleanliness habits actually came from researching this episode. Maybe it'll
have some sort of positive impact on you too. Who knows.
There's only one way to find out, and that is
to enjoy this episode. Thank you. Welcome to Stuff you
Should Know from house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
(00:51):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck
Bryant's consulting his notes, he's wearing his classes. Everybody's getting
ready to podcast. So that this stuff, you know, stretching,
doing my yoga. You just pat for the fourth time
in the last hour, got more coffee and drink a
lot of coffee. But that was exciting. Yeah, And while
(01:13):
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 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
(01:36):
I can get ahold of myself like that. But at
the same time, you know what it is. It was
that it was flesh 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. Yeah, I'm not
(02:00):
super germ conscious. I have been more so though since
we've started learning more about this crap um. But we
have a mutual friend whose girlfriend won't even keep her
toothbrush in the bathroom. Oh really, Yeah, she said, why
would I among the fecal air? Why would I keep
(02:20):
my toothbrush in the bathroom? Makes sense? Yeah, And uh,
she knows who she is. I don't know 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
(02:41):
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 and the children who
develop allergies, it's because they are raised in a sterile
lisol environment. My environment was filthy, dirty, and and so
when they finally get out into this very filthy an
the world e g Um preschool, Yeah, they are. They
(03:05):
don't have any anybody's built up for it. It makes
a lot of sense. I don't know that there's any
hard science that backs it up, but I don't know
that it's ever been disproven. But that's called the hygiene
hypods It appeals to me. It appeals to me. I'm
not 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,
(03:25):
I'm in the middle. Yes, I appreciate that. Okay, I
guess really 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
(03:45):
I dropped it, I would possibly eat it. There's a
there's a comedian here in Atlanta. It's pretty good. It
names no Garden Schwartz and he's saying, yeah, yeah, it
means Noah Black Garden, I think and uh. He was
saying that, Um, the five second role is basically exists
(04:07):
on a sliding scale. Like if it's a piece of broccoli,
it's like a zero second agreed. If it's like a cheeto,
it's like a whenever I find it rule. Whenever I
find it, pick it up and eat it. Roll. Um.
He does it way better than me. But he had
a great observation about the five second role. The point
is for me, it depends on what it is where
(04:30):
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 couch and there's like dust bunnies 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
(04:52):
was found. Like some places seem far cleaner to me
than other's, Like my in Numi's apartment is very very clean. Sure,
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 if it were like a very dry cookie,
(05:15):
perhaps they a good potato chip, Yeah, that wasn't stale yet,
it's very clean, 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
(05:37):
sweets Um the King, they're candy bar the King. If
I found one of those that I had just forgotten
that was under my couch, 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.
(05:58):
That's why I would do that. Um, you know, they
released a box a selection of caramels called stuff you
Should Eat a little Bit Sweet stuyah, and it says
specifically on their website that that's in honor of us.
Thank you, listen jen Um. Okay, So I feel like
we've gone in depth on what we do with the
five second rule. The question still remains, Chuck, is it?
(06:22):
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. 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
(06:45):
the UH fighting L I and I of the University
of Illinois, 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 coded, um, these
tiles with E. Coli, which is really gross, and drop
cookies and gummy bears and things onto the surface for
certain amounts of time and then studied what kind of
(07:06):
bacteria picked up And of course no matter how long
have they been down there, 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
(07:28):
like a like a ninja. And it matters because the
longest they are, the more bacteria it's gonna 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
(07:51):
blazed the trail. Uh. And then about four years later,
some closing 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. Okay,
screw you, tigers. Um, all right, so what did they
(08:15):
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, and where you're going.
These guys created a broth of salmonella. They call it
salmonella 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
(08:36):
on it. 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, would surface and carpet, right, and
then they started dropping bread and bologny on it. Good choice,
(08:58):
why not? Um? And they they found what Clark found
that in less than five seconds, no matter how short
at 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 an infectious dose. Okay,
(09:22):
so that is five seconds or under. If he left
it down there for a minute, it was going to
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 poop on your shoes. Yeah, that's
another thing too, everywhere. But you should you should take
(09:44):
your shoes off. My wife is of Japanese ancestry, and
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. You don't want
(10:07):
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 with 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 bigging into taking their shoes. My friend
Jason and in Tokyo that he is married to a
(10:27):
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. 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 guess you point have never left your house, so
(10:49):
that's the deal. Yes, and I don't like wild 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 go barefoot in there? The
socks or whatever? Yeah, okay, but like I don't want
to burn the socks cut my feet. I bought some
new slippers. Dude. I'm not usually wanted to plug things
(11:11):
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 us men slippers,
my friend, what do you think I wear that we were? Yes,
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 have a back, and they
have like the hard bottom, so you can go out
(11:32):
and get in the mail or if you're me, go
to the grocery store. Man, it's so comfortable and all
the what is it upper or whatever, it's not as sharp.
It's called sharper lining. Oh is it? Yeah? The sheep
shear that's what That's what some people call it. So cozy. Okay,
(11:53):
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,
(12:25):
the longer the stuff stayed in contact the more the
more it was, the 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,
(12:50):
so it all washed out. So it made some difference,
but not really. Whether it's wood, tyler carpet, when you
drop 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.
(13:12):
Uh So, of course, Carpet, that's not much of a
surprise that there's a lot of bacteria in there. But
would or tile Not only do they find that, like
the stuff can survive for a while, it survives for
up to a month. A month after they put this
stuff on there, a month later there was still living
bacteria enough for an infectious dose on all three surfaces.
(13:35):
A dude, that's okay, I'm becoming more of a drama fobe.
And yeah, we're all turning into David Putty right now.
And yeah, remember he and Peggy who called Elaine Suze Susie.
They both turned out to be germaphobes. They had like
a little bacteria. Yeah, remember Cramer made a radish rose
(14:02):
in his shower. He had a garbage disposal in his
shower so he could remember 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, So a dry cookie
(14:25):
versus a piece of like wet bologna or salami or
moist bolognay 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, if not more important than the watching. Yeah,
they found that, um, this transfer bacteria seems to be
(14:45):
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 a surface that you would have touched with your
wet hands, and you're gonna have far less bacteria transferred
to it. Yea, or nowadays the air dryers in the bathroom,
(15:07):
have have you noticed in the past few years or
just like for fifty years, it was the same air dryer. Oh,
now there's the accelerator. Now there's the accelerator and the
Dyson blade dryer. I like the accelerator because the Dison
blade do you have to stick your hands down in
there like that and it's almost like playing operation, Like
it's almost impossible not to touch the side, and then like,
what's what does anyone clean the bottom of those things? Like?
(15:30):
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. It's true. 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 skydiving thing. Oh yeah, exactly. And let's talk
about hands real quick, chuck. So there's a study that
(15:51):
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, they did fifty one participants.
(16:15):
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, five period, not even percent.
(16:36):
Oh yeah, five period. 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 ye,
And it's just luck of the drawers 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 shared only seventeen percent
(16:57):
of the bacterial species, 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
(17:19):
hand you shake, you're going to be getting a different
type of bacteria from someone. Yeah. And if somebody like
shakes your hand is 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
(17:41):
are more likely to eat something off the floor than men,
which surprised me. What surprised me is where the person
who wrote this article got that. I couldn't find it.
Anyone didn't either. 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,
(18:02):
so you've eaten something off the floor? Are we 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,
it's just 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
(18:23):
minute ago. Um, all right, so you've picked up a
cookie off of the floor, it's dry, it's been down
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 going
to kill all this stuff factor fiction. That is fiction.
That is very much fiction. So says uh. The germ
(18:43):
guru of the University of Arizona, go, what are they? Wildcats?
Sun devils? Who's the Arizona State? That's Arizona State. Arizona's wildcats,
cats go wildcats. Charles Gerba, his name almost looks like germ,
yeah close or gerb closer than Clark. Like he's the
adult version of the Gerber baby. So he says that
(19:05):
uh virus is actually uh survived the 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 going to 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,
(19:29):
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
(19:51):
the Today Show and like analyze this stuff and just
freaks people out. It's like kind of his um, his trade. Yeah,
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
(20:14):
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
(20:35):
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 necessary but filthy.
(20:56):
Remember the I think the Clorox wipes or lights Al
wipes commerce Still where the lady was using a sponge
or like, if you're using a sponge, you might as
well 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
(21:16):
letting it 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 place. You don't love your family, so
you can use it at first, 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
(21:39):
the 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 sterilized the counter. All right,
So your kitchen floor is is dirtier than your trash can.
Your sponge holds sixty times more bacteria than your pet
(22:02):
food bowl, even though pet food bowls are pretty gross too,
supposedly because you don't clean them out as much. Sure,
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 surprisingly germ free compared to other
(22:25):
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 found that, um, apparently,
(22:50):
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 these sanitizing wipes once or twice a day, and
then the other group didn't, and after two days there
(23:11):
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, hands at your dead mouse
is a big one. Your mouse, you'll let your a
keyboard apparently where you typically rest your hand on your
desk minds on my mouse, um has about ten million
bacteria on average. UM. But he also found that over
(23:32):
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 surfaces. 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,
no one calls us. I don't even know my number
(23:53):
to give out, and and anytimes if somebody asked for
I'm like just email. Yeah, that's what I do. Um.
Molly At, 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 out that and
(24:14):
if you're a restaurant and you have more than seven
hundred bacteria per square inch, you're going to 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.
(24:34):
I don't clean of people, uh only occasionally will wipe
down their work area. And um, your desktop itself, not
the computer desktop, but your desk. It's a hundred times
Germany or than a kitchen table and four hunh again,
four hundred times Germany or than a toilet seat. And
(24:55):
presentee is um, which is a big problem. Uh se
shent of workers, I'm sorry. One third of workers that's
not 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
(25:16):
a problem. It's not okay. And I know around here,
especially Tracy are from she takes it pretty serious. She's
like she gets piste off. When people are in here sick,
she'll yell yeah, she'll say, if you're sick, please stay home. Um,
because the office is dirty, your bathrooms dirty, your kitchens dirty.
That cutting board that you're cutting your vegetables on filthy. Yeah,
(25:38):
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 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 they can survive on wood, on tile,
on non poor service is on synthetic surfaces that are
(26:02):
designed to keep bacteria from thriving. These things can survive
because they live in biofilm. Yeah, it's this protective um
film on any surface. And if a surface has grooves
or things like that that where a biofilm can hide,
there's going to be a lot more bacteria. And cutting
board apparently is one of those great examples, especially a
(26:23):
wood cutting board, I think, yeah, which I prefer me too.
Got a clean and well though, Yeah, because I'd rather
have some bacteria in my food than like shards of plastic.
You know. Yeah, it's a good point. Um, So before
(26:50):
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's going to take care
of most of it too. But it only takes like
you know, when you find yourself retching over the toilet
with a stomach virus, it might have just been one
(27:12):
little bacteria that got through, and all it takes is
ten for salmon alody gets you in a hundred for E. Coli,
ten ten little guys the bottom of a woman's purse randomly.
Uh Gerba again just ran up to some people and
he's like, let me test your purse. And he found
um from the hundreds to six point seven million on
(27:35):
the bottom of one woman's purse. And he didn't say
that that also had like pieces of pot pie, and like,
there are probably reasons, but I think that was that one.
That's a good thing to go out and took you
to goodbye, reassuring everybody that as long as your immune
system is in order, you're probably Okay, as far as
(27:56):
these bacteria go. Don't keep your toothbrush in your bathroom,
so says our friends care rn. UM. Let's see before
we say anything like listener mail or go find this article.
I want to do a quick shout out. Okay, do it.
Archiva team Chuck recently hit a very significant milestone. One
point five million dollars in loans. Wow. That's enormous. Not
(28:23):
say it? Oh? Yeah. Kiva the Kiva dot organism micro
lending site where you can make loans and little twenty
five dollar increments to people 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,
(28:45):
and um Archiva team has doled out one point five
million in these twenty five dollar loans. That's just such
an amazing accomplishment. Yeah. 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 perpect to it,
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
(29:08):
solstice June one. It's an international date, right, um and Glenn,
the team leader at Kiva, 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. We're a very inclusive and welcoming group of people.
(29:31):
You can go to UM www dot Kiva, k I
v a 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 house to folks dot com, I said search bar.
So it's time for listener mail. It is Josh. This
(29:52):
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,
I'm not We would be premiss if we didn't remind
everyone that on Saturday night at ten pm Eastern on
Science Channel, 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,
(30:16):
with Carl Pilkington. That comes on first, and then we
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, ifear not,
because as we have announced, you can purchase these episodes
on iTunes after they are released next day. And because
we love everyone so much in the world, you can
get the premiere episode for free on iTunes. So just
(30:40):
seek it out, download it, watch it and make some
noise over at Science Channel for and on Twitter too.
Um and uh we 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
(31:02):
and all sorts of goodness, so it should be Hopefully
everybody likes it. Yeah, as we have said before, it's
the real US in a fictional world, spelling factual information.
Yes that's a red tagline. All right. I hope you
stuck around for this listenermail 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 myself
(31:23):
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.
(31:46):
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
(32:07):
someone who I said I never would become. It was
full of hate. The 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, got
married and had our son, Raydon. And yes I didn't
name him Radin after Mortal Kombat, and then I was
turned on your podcast after listening to over two hundred
of them, you two have opened a hard spot in
(32:28):
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.
(32:50):
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. So. I can't thank you
guys enough for all I've done without even knowing it.
Sometimes all it takes is good hearts and a good
podcast to make even a small difference. If you guys
(33:12):
are Evan Ohio, I would like to play about the
drink that is from Ben children May and Ben thank
you for that. We're not even trying. I dude, I
read this stuff and I'm just like, are you kidding me?
That's pretty cool? Like 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
(33:33):
second rule, 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
(33:56):
maybe I am that kid. Let's let's find out. And
I ate a sticker that was on the ground was
some hair attached to it, and I was like, no,
I need to keep seeking my persona because that not me. Yeah. Wow, yeah,
well we want to know about them, right, Yeah. I
can't believe you held out I mean that long that story.
Tweet to us at s Y s K podcast, join
(34:16):
us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should Know,
and as always, you can send us an email for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it,
how stuff works, dot com
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