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Does the five-second rule work? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
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Speaker 1: Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant's consulting his note, he's
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Speaker 1: wearing his glasses. Everybody's getting ready to podcast. So that
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Speaker 1: means just the stuff, you know, stretching, doing my yoga.
0:26
Speaker 1: You just pet for the fourth time in the last hour,
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Speaker 1: got more coffee and you think a lot of coffee.
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Speaker 1: Well that was exciting. Yeah, And while I was getting coffee,
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Speaker 1: I was like, I used my elbow to press the
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Speaker 1: buttons to make coffee. Are you doing that now? Um?
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Speaker 1: I have become I'm trying to think back to what
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Speaker 1: initiated it, but I've definitely become far more germ conscious.
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Speaker 1: I'm not a germophobe because I can just be like,
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Speaker 1: oh god, you know that's fine. You your fingers touched
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Speaker 1: your mouth, Stop simpering, right, Like I can get ahold
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Speaker 1: of myself like that. But at the same time, you
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Speaker 1: know what it is. It was that it was flesh
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Speaker 1: eating bacteria when it was going around Georgia for a
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Speaker 1: little while, and then simultaneously like being aware that, like
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Speaker 1: the gym is lousy with germs, and I think that
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Speaker 1: that did a one two number on me, and all
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Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm just very I'm very aware of
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Speaker 1: what I touch. I'm not super germ conscious. I have
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Speaker 1: been more so though, since we've started learning more about
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Speaker 1: this crap um. But we have a mutual friend whose
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Speaker 1: girlfriend won't even keep her toothbrush in the bathroom. Oh really,
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Speaker 1: she said, why would I among the fecal air? Why
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Speaker 1: would I keep my toothbrush in the bathroom? Makes sense?
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Speaker 1: And uh, she knows who she is. I don't know
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Speaker 1: who she is. I'll tell you after. Um, so you're
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Speaker 1: kind of you're okay with it, You're okay with the
1:56
Speaker 1: idea of germs. I mean, there is this whole there's
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Speaker 1: this whole thing called the hygiene hypothesis, which makes uttering
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Speaker 1: complete sense to me that if you're allow more germs
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Speaker 1: and you'll just learn to fight them and have more
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Speaker 1: robust immune systems. Yes, especially growing up as a child
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Speaker 1: and the children who develop allergies, it's because they are
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Speaker 1: raised in a sterile lisol environment. My environment was a filthy,
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Speaker 1: dirty and and so when they finally get out into
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Speaker 1: this very filthy, dirty world e g um preschool. They are,
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Speaker 1: they don't have any anybodies built up for it. It
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Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. I don't know that there's
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Speaker 1: any hard science that backs it up, but I don't
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Speaker 1: know that it's ever been disproven. But it's called the
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Speaker 1: hygiene hypothesis. It appeals to me. It apeels to me.
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Speaker 1: I I don't have allergies. I don't get sick that much. No,
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Speaker 1: and I'm unhealthy as it gets. I wouldn't call you that. No,
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Speaker 1: I'm in the middle. Yes, I appreciate that. Okay, I guess. Really,
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Speaker 1: the division line between a germophobe in a non germophobe
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Speaker 1: would probably be found somewhere in the five second rule
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Speaker 1: when don't you think? Sure? So, like if I dropped something,
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Speaker 1: depending on what it was and where I dropped it,
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Speaker 1: I would possibly eat it. There's a there's a comedian
3:14
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. It's pretty good. His names no Garden Schwartz.
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Speaker 1: And he's saying that, Yeah, it means Noah black Garden,
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Speaker 1: I think and uh. He was saying that, Um, the
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Speaker 1: five second role is basically exists on a sliding scale,
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Speaker 1: Like if it's a piece of broccoli, it's like a
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Speaker 1: zero second. If it's like a cheeto, it's like a
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Speaker 1: whenever I find it rule. Whenever I find it, pick
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Speaker 1: it up and eat it. Role Um. He does it
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Speaker 1: way better than me. But he had a great observation
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Speaker 1: about the five second rule. The point is for me,
3:51
Speaker 1: it depends on what it is where it is, not
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Speaker 1: really even how long it's been there. I mean, if
3:57
Speaker 1: if it's because there's so long and it's under the
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Speaker 1: couch and there's like dust bun he's accumulated on it,
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Speaker 1: I won't eat it. No, no, no, you wouldn't eat
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Speaker 1: anything that you didn't recently drop, would you. If you
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Speaker 1: just found a cookie on the floor, you would eat it. Again,
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Speaker 1: it depends on where where it was found. Like some
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Speaker 1: places seem far cleaner to me than others, like mine
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Speaker 1: and Humian's apartment is very very clean. So if it
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Speaker 1: fell and was just slightly under the couch, yeah yeah,
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Speaker 1: I would, Yeah, I'd eat it. It depends. I mean,
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Speaker 1: if it were a piece of salami or something, I wouldn't.
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Speaker 1: But there were like a very dry cookie, perhaps am
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Speaker 1: a good potato chip that wasn't stale yet. It's very clean.
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Speaker 1: I would blow it off and eat it. Yeah, I would. Um,
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Speaker 1: since we're talking about our sliding scales, I would eat
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Speaker 1: nothing that I didn't recently drop, unless it was a
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Speaker 1: if it was like a little bit sweets, Um the King,
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Speaker 1: they're canny, bar the King. If I found one of
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Speaker 1: those that I had just forgotten that was under my couch,
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Speaker 1: unwrapped on the floor, I would eat that, no matter
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Speaker 1: how long it had been there. I would maybe rinse
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Speaker 1: it off, or I would melt it down or in
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Speaker 1: reform it or do something deconstructed. That's what I would
5:22
Speaker 1: do that. Um. You know, they released a box a
5:26
Speaker 1: selection of caramels called stuff you Should Eat a little
5:29
Speaker 1: Bit Sweets and it says specifically on their website that
5:32
Speaker 1: that's in honor of us. Thank you listen jin Um. Okay.
5:36
Speaker 1: So I feel like we've gone in depth on what
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Speaker 1: we'd do with the five second rule. The question still remains, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: is it Is it viable? Is that a real thing?
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Speaker 1: Like if you if you are an adherent to the
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Speaker 1: five second rule and you're like, I'm a very clean person.
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Speaker 1: I only eat stuff that's been on the floor for
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Speaker 1: five seconds or less. Are you full of it. Well,
5:59
Speaker 1: you're sort of full of it, You're totally full of it.
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Speaker 1: There's a high school student, uh in two thousand three,
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Speaker 1: Jillian Clark and um she was doing her internship at
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Speaker 1: UH fighting l I and I of the University of Illinois,
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Speaker 1: and she said, you know what, we should do a
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Speaker 1: little study because it's the old wives tale about the
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Speaker 1: five second rule. And she coated, um, these tiles with E. Coli,
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Speaker 1: which is really gross, and dropped cookies and gummy bears
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Speaker 1: and things onto the surface for certain amounts of time,
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Speaker 1: and then studied what kind of bacteria picked up. And
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Speaker 1: of course, no matter how long had they been down there,
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Speaker 1: bacteria did jump onto the food within five seconds. What
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Speaker 1: is important to point out, though, is the long you
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Speaker 1: left it there, the more it picked up. So the
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Speaker 1: five seconds are under is important. Like it's usually not
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Speaker 1: five seconds for me. If I drop a piece of food,
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Speaker 1: I've got it back within my hand in like two seconds.
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Speaker 1: I've seen it. You're like like a ninja. And it
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Speaker 1: matters because the longest they are, the more bacteria's gonna
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Speaker 1: pick up. Right, yeah, yeah, um, So Jillian Clark just
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Speaker 1: did this very initial, preliminary investigation. But she was a
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Speaker 1: pioneer and received the two thousand four Ignoble Prize for
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Speaker 1: Public Health for her efforts. Yeah. Um, and so she
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Speaker 1: kind of she established this trail. She blazed the trail. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And then about four years later, some Clemson University researchers
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Speaker 1: really kind of dug in to figure out what was
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Speaker 1: going on with this five second rule and built on
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Speaker 1: Clark's work. Tigers. Yeah, I mean, we gotta say it.
7:31
Speaker 1: I don't feel like we do. Screw you tigers. Um,
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Speaker 1: all right, So what did they found out? They found out, Well,
7:39
Speaker 1: if you thought that the same thing, right, if you
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Speaker 1: thought the E. Coli bacteria and the tiles was gross,
7:43
Speaker 1: I know where you're going. These guys created a broth
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Speaker 1: of sam and ella. They call it samuela soup, which
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Speaker 1: is so nasty. Yeah. And they they applied it to
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Speaker 1: three different types of material because I mean, like sure,
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Speaker 1: maybe five seconds you're gonna get some bacteria on it.
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Speaker 1: But what if what doesn't it depend on the kind
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Speaker 1: of food? Doesn't it depend on the kind of surface
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Speaker 1: that comes in contact with So these investigators their pros
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Speaker 1: they were at Clemson. Um, they applied to salmonella soup
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Speaker 1: to tile, wood surface and carpet, right, and then they
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Speaker 1: started dropping bread and bologny on it. Good choice, why not? Um?
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Speaker 1: And they they found what Clark found that in less
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Speaker 1: than five seconds, no matter how short the time, but
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Speaker 1: there was a bacterial transfer. Yeah, between a hundred and
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Speaker 1: fifty and eight thousand bacteria if under five seconds. And
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Speaker 1: consider this with salmonella, you only need ten individual bacterium
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Speaker 1: too for what's called it infectious dose. Okay, so that
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Speaker 1: is five seconds or under. If he left it down
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Speaker 1: there for a minute, it was gonna be ten times that.
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Speaker 1: And um, there are ten strains of salmonella not I mean,
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Speaker 1: besides just the bacteria, it's there's a lot of stuff
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Speaker 1: going on down there on your floor, most notably poopo. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's another thing to everywhere. But you should you should
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Speaker 1: take your shoes off. My wife is of Japanese ancestry,
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Speaker 1: and things I definitely picked up from hers, like you
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Speaker 1: take your shoes off when you come in the house,
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Speaker 1: so you just walk around without shoes on all the
9:17
Speaker 1: all the time, or slippers or something. Yeah, because like,
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Speaker 1: especially if you're germ conscious, man, if you go into
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Speaker 1: a public bathroom and you walk out of there, you're
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Speaker 1: the bottom of your shoes are just like a nightmare.
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Speaker 1: You do want to track that all over your house
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Speaker 1: because you may find a cookie on your couch that
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Speaker 1: you want to eat. You have to plan for the
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Speaker 1: future basically, and that starts of taking your shoes off
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Speaker 1: in your house. For some reason, I don't think the
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Speaker 1: Japanese culture is rooted in the hopes that you'll find
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Speaker 1: a cookie on your floor and be able to eat it. No,
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Speaker 1: maybe not, but they are big into taking the shoes.
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Speaker 1: My friend Jason and in Tokyo that he is married
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Speaker 1: to a woman in Keiko, and years ago when we're
9:52
Speaker 1: living in Athens, they started that tradition of removing your
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Speaker 1: shoes and he was like, hey, you mind, I was like,
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Speaker 1: of course not, watch this, what's it? Well? Sometimes they
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Speaker 1: will even provide like slippers and stuff for guests, Like
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Speaker 1: if you're in a Japanese home, so you're still wearing
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Speaker 1: shoes in there. But I get the point that I've
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Speaker 1: never left your house, so that's the deal. Yes, And
10:13
Speaker 1: I don't like I'm old environment, You're all good. Yeah,
10:15
Speaker 1: And I won't wear my slippers in the bathroom either.
10:19
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you. I just got some new slippers.
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Speaker 1: What do you go barefoot in there? The bather socks
10:25
Speaker 1: or whatever? Yeah, but like I don't want to burn
10:27
Speaker 1: the socks I cut my feet off. I bought some
10:31
Speaker 1: new slippers. Dude. I'm not usually wanted to plug things
10:34
Speaker 1: on the air. But if you're a grown man and
10:36
Speaker 1: you want some the best slippers you've ever had, and
10:39
Speaker 1: you don't mind throwing down little cash men slippers, my friend,
10:43
Speaker 1: what do you think I wear? I wonder if they're
10:46
Speaker 1: the same ones. They are like little loafer sort of swede.
10:49
Speaker 1: Mine don't have a back. They just have this soul
10:52
Speaker 1: back and they had like the hard bottom. So you
10:54
Speaker 1: can go out and get in the mail or if
10:56
Speaker 1: you're me, go to the grocery store. Man, so comfortable
11:01
Speaker 1: and all the what is it uh or whatever? It's
11:05
Speaker 1: not it's called sirpa lining. Oh is it? Yeah? The
11:10
Speaker 1: sheep shear, that's what. That's what some people call it.
11:14
Speaker 1: So cozy. Okay, so slippers. I need to start plugging
11:18
Speaker 1: these things and giving them for free. I'm a sucker.
11:21
Speaker 1: Always buy them and then plug them, right, But it's
11:23
Speaker 1: not a sucker. Chuck here above the boards, okay, Um,
11:27
Speaker 1: so back to it. Oh so the longer the stuff
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Speaker 1: stayed in contact the more the more it was the
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Speaker 1: more bacteria that came upon it. But surprisingly, what they
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Speaker 1: found was that the transfer was the least for carpet.
11:43
Speaker 1: The type of surface that came in contact with made
11:45
Speaker 1: a difference. I thought it was the most for carpet
11:47
Speaker 1: was the least. It was the least transferred, but the
11:52
Speaker 1: stuff survived in the carpet longer, so it all washed out.
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Speaker 1: So it made some difference, but not really whether it's wood,
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Speaker 1: tylor carpet, when you dropped something on it, there's going
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Speaker 1: to be a a lot of bacteria transfer. But this
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Speaker 1: stuff survives on these services. Carpet, you're kind of like, okay, yeah,
12:08
Speaker 1: there's a lot to it. There's pile and you know,
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Speaker 1: there's some sort of Berber factor and all that. Um,
12:14
Speaker 1: you can't forget the Berber factory, right. Uh So, of
12:17
Speaker 1: course carpet, that's not much of surprised that there's a
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Speaker 1: lot of bacteria in there, but would or tile. Not
12:22
Speaker 1: only did they find that, like the stuff can survive
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Speaker 1: for a while, it survives for up to a month
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Speaker 1: a month after they put the stuff on there, a
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Speaker 1: month later, there was still living bacteria enough for an
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Speaker 1: infectious dose on all three surfaces. D That's okay, I'm
12:42
Speaker 1: becoming more of a drama fobe. And yeah, we're all
12:45
Speaker 1: turning into David Putty right now. And remember he and
12:51
Speaker 1: Peggy who called Elaine Suze Susie. They both turned out
12:57
Speaker 1: to be germa phobes. They had like a little back acteria. Yeah.
13:02
Speaker 1: Remember Cramer made a radish rose in his shower. He
13:07
Speaker 1: had a garbage disposal in his shower so he could
13:10
Speaker 1: bathe at the same time. It was that episode. Um so,
13:14
Speaker 1: I know earlier you mentioned, um it's just kind of
13:17
Speaker 1: off handedly said. You know, if it's something dry like
13:19
Speaker 1: a cookie or that actually makes a difference. You found
13:22
Speaker 1: out that moisture can be the key to more bacteria transfer. Um,
13:28
Speaker 1: So a dry cookie versus a piece of like wet
13:30
Speaker 1: bologna or salami or moist bologny. I said moist bologny, Um,
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Speaker 1: we'll have more bacteria. And that's why they say when
13:39
Speaker 1: you go to the restroom and you wash your hands,
13:43
Speaker 1: the drying is just as important, not more important, than
13:46
Speaker 1: the watching. Yeah, they found that, um, this transfer bacteria
13:49
Speaker 1: seems to be facilitated by moisture. Right, so when you
13:52
Speaker 1: touch something with your wet hands, you're gonna get a
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Speaker 1: bunch of a bunch of bacteria transferred onto your hands.
13:58
Speaker 1: If you wash your hands and then use one of
14:00
Speaker 1: those hands free paper towels spencers and dry your hands,
14:03
Speaker 1: you can touch that same surface that you would have
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Speaker 1: touched with your wet hands, and you're gonna have far
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Speaker 1: less bacteria transferred to it. Yeah, or nowadays the air
14:10
Speaker 1: dryers in the bathroom. Have have you noticed in the
14:13
Speaker 1: past few years or just like for fifty years it
14:16
Speaker 1: was the same air dryer. Oh no, there's the accelerator.
14:19
Speaker 1: Now there's the accelerator and the Dyson blade dryer. I
14:22
Speaker 1: like the accelerator because the Dicon blade you have to
14:24
Speaker 1: stick your hands down in there like that, and it's
14:26
Speaker 1: almost like playing operation, like it's almost impossible not want
14:29
Speaker 1: to touch the side, and then like, what's what does
14:32
Speaker 1: anyone clean the bottom of those things? Like? I don't
14:35
Speaker 1: think so. The accelerator, it's all just like blowing your
14:38
Speaker 1: hands and you're you're done, and it's you cannot touch
14:41
Speaker 1: things more. I like the accelerator because the the way
14:45
Speaker 1: it makes your skin ripple, like the g forces is
14:47
Speaker 1: pretty amazing, like we were in the indoor sky diving
14:50
Speaker 1: through Yeah, exactly. And let's let's talk about hands real quick, chuck.
14:54
Speaker 1: So there's a study that came out of the University
14:56
Speaker 1: of Colorado at Boulder and UM they found some really
15:00
Speaker 1: surprising things using this technique called metagenomics where they take
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Speaker 1: a swab of like a sample off of your hands,
15:08
Speaker 1: and then rather than doing culture, they do basically a
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Speaker 1: DNA profile for everything found in that swab. What they find, well,
15:17
Speaker 1: they did fifty one participants. They found different bacteria species
15:24
Speaker 1: across the fifty one participants. UM. And what what I
15:29
Speaker 1: found was particularly interesting. They found that UM, only five
15:34
Speaker 1: percent of these species were found in all fifty one participants. No,
15:38
Speaker 1: five period not even percent. Oh yeah, five periods. So
15:42
Speaker 1: out of all these species only when we're sharing. So
15:44
Speaker 1: that means we there's just way more out there than
15:47
Speaker 1: we thought, I guess huh. And it's just luck of
15:50
Speaker 1: the draw as to what leaps to your hands, I
15:52
Speaker 1: guess so. And not only your hands, but specific hands too.
15:56
Speaker 1: They found that the right and left palms of a
15:58
Speaker 1: single person share at only seventeen percent of the bacterial species,
16:04
Speaker 1: so that means there's different species on different hands of
16:09
Speaker 1: the same person. That's weird. And then women tend to
16:12
Speaker 1: have a higher diversity of bacteria on their hands than men.
16:16
Speaker 1: Not necessarily more uh bacteria total, but more diversity among species. Interesting.
16:23
Speaker 1: So depending on which hand you shake, you're going to
16:25
Speaker 1: be getting a different type of bacteria from someone. Yeah.
16:28
Speaker 1: And if somebody like shakes your hands like, oh, it's
16:31
Speaker 1: just water, I washed my hand, punch them in the
16:34
Speaker 1: head because you're that's bacterial transfer. Jerk dry your hands. Yeah.
16:39
Speaker 1: And uh and since you mentioned women, um, I think
16:42
Speaker 1: the study by the Girl in two thousand three found
16:45
Speaker 1: that women are more likely to eat something off the
16:47
Speaker 1: floor than men, which surprised me. What surprised me is
16:51
Speaker 1: where the person who wrote this article got that. I
16:53
Speaker 1: couldn't find it anything. I saw that women were more
16:56
Speaker 1: familiar with the concept of the five second rule, but
16:59
Speaker 1: that not that they used it more. Yeah, you know what,
17:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call that a dubious statement, then dubious indeed. Uh, okay,
17:06
Speaker 1: so you've eaten something off of the floor, are we
17:09
Speaker 1: get on hands? Yeah? Thanks for that, okay. I like
17:12
Speaker 1: in the article they pointed out that out of the
17:14
Speaker 1: fifty one participants, there were a hundred and two hands. Yeah,
17:18
Speaker 1: this is like, all right, so good. You didn't have
17:20
Speaker 1: any amputees in the study, right. What was funny is
17:22
Speaker 1: I was I didn't think it added up, and then
17:24
Speaker 1: I realized that's why I stopped for a second a
17:27
Speaker 1: minute again. Um, all right, so you've picked up a
17:29
Speaker 1: cookie off of the floor. It's dry, it's been down
17:32
Speaker 1: there for three seconds, and you think, you know what,
17:34
Speaker 1: I'm gonna roll the dice and eat it because my
17:37
Speaker 1: stomach acids and the acids and my saliva is gonna
17:40
Speaker 1: kill all this stuff factor fiction. That is fiction. That
17:45
Speaker 1: is very much fiction. So says Uh, the germ guru
17:49
Speaker 1: of the University of Arizona, go, what are the wildcats?
17:53
Speaker 1: It's sun devils. There's the Arizona State. It's Arizona State,
17:55
Speaker 1: Arizona's wildcats. Cats go wildcats. Charles Gerba, his name almost
18:00
Speaker 1: looks like germ yeah close or Gerber closer than Clark,
18:05
Speaker 1: Like he's the adult version of the Gerber baby. So
18:09
Speaker 1: he says that UH virus is actually UH survived the
18:13
Speaker 1: low pH In fact, a lot of them like it,
18:15
Speaker 1: and that pretty much any bacteria that you can infect
18:19
Speaker 1: your intestine with is going to stay alive long enough
18:22
Speaker 1: to get to your intestine, right, It's gonna survive that
18:24
Speaker 1: that acidity in your stomach. Yeah, look, look look for
18:27
Speaker 1: a podcast on digestion. That was a good one man.
18:29
Speaker 1: That was great if you want to learn how that works. Um,
18:33
Speaker 1: And it does make a difference on where it's landed,
18:36
Speaker 1: like you said, Um, some floors are more dangerous than others.
18:39
Speaker 1: In bathrooms are the worst place on earth. Yeah, and
18:44
Speaker 1: kitchens actually, kitchens are the worst. There's supposedly dirtier than bathrooms.
18:47
Speaker 1: It depends on the bathroom. But yeah. Gerba points out
18:50
Speaker 1: that of all the shoes that he's ever analyzed, and
18:53
Speaker 1: this guy like runs around on Good Morning America in
18:56
Speaker 1: the Today Show and like analyze this stuff and just
18:58
Speaker 1: freaks people out. It's like kind of his for his trade. Yeah. Uh,
19:04
Speaker 1: he said that the fecal matter appears on about of
19:07
Speaker 1: the shoes he's ever analyzed. Of course it does. Yeah,
19:10
Speaker 1: like I said, there's poop everywhere, poop everywhere, especially in
19:14
Speaker 1: my house. So uh yeah, you'd think of public restrooms
19:18
Speaker 1: pretty bad, and it is, but it depends on what
19:21
Speaker 1: part of the public restroom you're talking about, and sometimes
19:24
Speaker 1: compared to other places that it doesn't hold a candle.
19:28
Speaker 1: There's some surprising germ statistics that were about to unleash
19:33
Speaker 1: on you. Let's start with uh, let's just jump all over.
19:36
Speaker 1: Then I got the kitchen floor. UM, the area on
19:39
Speaker 1: the kitchen floor just in front of your sink. We're
19:41
Speaker 1: gonna be doing your dishes and dropping food and poop.
19:44
Speaker 1: UM has more bacteria than your trash can square inch
19:49
Speaker 1: as opposed to four eleven, So double um and your
19:54
Speaker 1: kitchen sponge. I know everyone knows that that's a really
19:57
Speaker 1: filthy thing to have. You remember that one serry but filthy.
20:01
Speaker 1: Remember the I think the Chlorox wipes or Lightsol wipes
20:04
Speaker 1: commercial where the lady was using a sponge or like,
20:06
Speaker 1: if you're using a sponge, you might as we'll be
20:07
Speaker 1: doing this and she was just rubbing like a raw
20:09
Speaker 1: chicken breast on her counter like it was a sponge.
20:12
Speaker 1: That's basically true, though, It's like you you should be
20:15
Speaker 1: really careful with your sponge, what you clean with it,
20:18
Speaker 1: what you don't clean with it, um, the letting it
20:21
Speaker 1: dry out, changing it like regularly, like if you've got
20:25
Speaker 1: a two month old kitchen sponge and you're using that
20:28
Speaker 1: to wipe your counter. You were spreading bacteria all over
20:30
Speaker 1: the blaze. You don't love your family, so you can
20:33
Speaker 1: use it at first. This is what I do, because
20:34
Speaker 1: I'm a clean guy. My wife is not. I will
20:37
Speaker 1: clean up after her with a sponge, and then I'll
20:40
Speaker 1: go back with my organic spray and then do the
20:44
Speaker 1: paper towel wipe after that. That's the final step in
20:47
Speaker 1: the process. As always. The dry paper towel with my
20:52
Speaker 1: seventh seven stuff is what I used. And then a
20:54
Speaker 1: little bit of lighter fluid yep, sterilized the counter. All right,
20:59
Speaker 1: So you're kitchen floor is dirtier than your trash can.
21:02
Speaker 1: Your sponge holds sixty times more bacteria than your pet
21:06
Speaker 1: food bowl, even though pet food bowls are pretty gross too,
21:10
Speaker 1: supposedly because you don't claim out as much. And all
21:14
Speaker 1: of this is germier than a toilet seat. Yeah, you
21:19
Speaker 1: always hear that, the old toilet seat. Yeah, And I
21:21
Speaker 1: think the reason why the toilet seat is surprisingly cleaner
21:25
Speaker 1: in comparison, or or surprisingly germ free compared to other
21:30
Speaker 1: things like your kitchen sink and all that is because
21:32
Speaker 1: people clean the toilet seat more frequently because they think
21:36
Speaker 1: of it as a dirty place. And this is kind
21:38
Speaker 1: of borne out in another study that Gerba carried out
21:41
Speaker 1: on behalf of the Chlorox Corporation, who make lights all
21:44
Speaker 1: wipes UM, and he found that one of the dirtiest
21:47
Speaker 1: places in the universe is a person's desk. And he
21:52
Speaker 1: found that UM apparently the average desk has a hundred
21:56
Speaker 1: times more bacteria than a kitchen table and four hundred
21:58
Speaker 1: times more bacteria than the average toilet. And one of
22:02
Speaker 1: the reasons is because people don't ever wipe this down.
22:04
Speaker 1: So he did the study where he divided workers into
22:07
Speaker 1: two groups. One group used the sanitizing wipes once or
22:11
Speaker 1: twice a day, and then the other group didn't, and
22:14
Speaker 1: after two days there was a ninety nine point nine
22:16
Speaker 1: percent reduction in bacteria on the desk of the people
22:19
Speaker 1: who are using the wipe. So wiping down your telephone, handset,
22:22
Speaker 1: your dead mouse is a big one keyboard apparently, where
22:26
Speaker 1: you typically rest your hand on your desk minds on
22:29
Speaker 1: my mouse, UM has about ten million bacteria on average. UM.
22:35
Speaker 1: But he also found that over the course of a day,
22:37
Speaker 1: if you don't wipe your stuff down, you actually increase
22:40
Speaker 1: your bacteria from nineteen to thirty one on telephone, mouse, keyboard,
22:46
Speaker 1: desktop services throughout a day, it increases that much more. Man,
22:49
Speaker 1: I haven't cleaned my desk in so long. It's been
22:52
Speaker 1: a while for me too. I don't use the phone
22:53
Speaker 1: though I don't either. Yeah, I don't even know my
22:57
Speaker 1: number to give out. And and anytimes if some but
23:00
Speaker 1: he asked for, I'm like, just email, Yeah, that's what
23:02
Speaker 1: I do. Um. Molly Edmunds, the former co host of
23:07
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You Back in the day, she
23:09
Speaker 1: wrote about cubicle death and specifically germs in the workplace,
23:14
Speaker 1: like we were just talking about and um, she points
23:18
Speaker 1: out that and if you're a restaurant and you have
23:20
Speaker 1: more than seven hundred bacteria per square inch, you're gonna
23:23
Speaker 1: be considered unsanitary. But you will come into contact with
23:26
Speaker 1: ten million bacteria day in your office. And statistics like
23:33
Speaker 1: people eat at their desk and don't clean. I eat
23:37
Speaker 1: at my desk occasionally. I don't clean of people, uh,
23:42
Speaker 1: only occasionally will wipe down their work area. And um,
23:47
Speaker 1: your desktop itself, not the computer desktop, but your desk.
23:51
Speaker 1: It's for me a hundred times germany or than a
23:53
Speaker 1: kitchen table and four hundred again four hundred times Germany,
23:58
Speaker 1: or than a toilet seat and presentee is um, which
24:01
Speaker 1: is a big problem. Uh of workers, I'm sorry. One
24:06
Speaker 1: third of workers that's not sev it's close reported to
24:11
Speaker 1: the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases that they felt like
24:15
Speaker 1: they were obligated to go to work even when they
24:18
Speaker 1: were sick. Yeah, that's it's a problem. It's not okay.
24:21
Speaker 1: And I know around here, especially Tracy Are she takes
24:26
Speaker 1: it pretty serious. She's like she gets piste off on
24:29
Speaker 1: people in here. Ye. Yeah, she'll say, if you're sick,
24:32
Speaker 1: please stay home, um, because the office is dirty, your
24:36
Speaker 1: bathrooms dirty, your kitchen's dirty. That cutting board that you're
24:39
Speaker 1: cutting your vegetables on filthy. Yeah, it's all dirty, it's
24:44
Speaker 1: all gross. Well, I can't remember. I was trying to
24:46
Speaker 1: think of what episode biofilm came up. You were telling
24:49
Speaker 1: everybody about biofilm. Oh, yeah, what was that? I can't
24:53
Speaker 1: for the life of me remember. But um, that's how
24:56
Speaker 1: bacteria survive. That's how they can survive on stainless steel.
24:59
Speaker 1: That's how the it can survive on wood, on tile,
25:03
Speaker 1: on nonpoorous surfaces, on synthetic surfaces that are designed to
25:07
Speaker 1: keep bacteria from thriving. These things can survive because they
25:11
Speaker 1: live in biofilm. It's this protective um film on any surface.
25:18
Speaker 1: And if the surface has grooves or things like that
25:20
Speaker 1: that where a biofilm can hide, there's gonna be a
25:24
Speaker 1: lot more bacteria. And cutting board apparently is one of
25:26
Speaker 1: those great examples, especially a wood cutting board, I think,
25:30
Speaker 1: which I prefer me too clean and well though, yeah,
25:32
Speaker 1: because I'd rather have some bacteria in my food than
25:35
Speaker 1: like shards of plastic, you know. Yeah, that's a good point. Um,
25:39
Speaker 1: So before you freak out and jump in a pool
25:42
Speaker 1: of pure l most of these germs are benign. Like
25:46
Speaker 1: we've quoted all these tens of thousands and millions of
25:49
Speaker 1: germs and things, most of urbanign, and your body is
25:51
Speaker 1: gonna take care of most of it too. But it
25:54
Speaker 1: only takes like you know, when you find yourself retching
25:58
Speaker 1: over the toilet with a stomach irs, it might have
26:01
Speaker 1: just been one little bacteria that got through. And all
26:04
Speaker 1: it takes is ten for Salmonello to gets you in
26:06
Speaker 1: a hundred for E. Coli ten ten little guys the
26:11
Speaker 1: bottom of a woman's purse randomly, uh, Gerba again just
26:18
Speaker 1: ran up to some people. He's like, let me test
26:19
Speaker 1: your purse, and he found UM from the hundreds to
26:23
Speaker 1: six point seven million on the bottom of one woman's purse.
26:28
Speaker 1: And he didn't say that that also had like pieces
26:32
Speaker 1: of pot pie. Then there were probably reasons, but I
26:36
Speaker 1: think that was one. That's a good thing to go
26:38
Speaker 1: out on. Took you to good bye, reassuring everybody that
26:42
Speaker 1: as long as your immune system is in order, you're
26:44
Speaker 1: probably okay as far as these bacteria go. Don't keep
26:47
Speaker 1: your toothbrush in your bathroom, so says our friend's girlfriend. UM,
26:51
Speaker 1: let's see before we say anything like listener mail or
26:57
Speaker 1: go find this article. I want to do a quick
26:58
Speaker 1: shout out. Okay, do it. Our Chiva team Chuck recently
27:02
Speaker 1: hit a very significant milestone one point five million dollars
27:07
Speaker 1: in loans. Wow, that's enormous. Say it? Oh yeah, Kiva
27:15
Speaker 1: Kiva dot organs a micro lending site where you can
27:18
Speaker 1: make loans and little twenty five dollar increments to people
27:21
Speaker 1: in the developing world to use for entrepreneurship. To um
27:26
Speaker 1: have their taxi license, to buy oxen, to retail clothes,
27:32
Speaker 1: what have you, um farming whatever, and um our Chiva
27:36
Speaker 1: team has doled out one point five million in these
27:39
Speaker 1: twenty five dollar loans. That's just such an amazing accomplishment.
27:43
Speaker 1: When we started this, we had no idea that it
27:45
Speaker 1: was gonna have legs like this. Yeah, and I mean
27:47
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep it going perpetuity, so we are. One
27:50
Speaker 1: of the reasons I wanted to shout out is because
27:52
Speaker 1: we are resetting our goals. We're setting our goal to
27:55
Speaker 1: two million dollars by the summer solstice June one. It's
27:59
Speaker 1: an international date, right um and Glenn, the team leader
28:05
Speaker 1: at CIVA, came up with this, and I think it's
28:08
Speaker 1: a sound idea. Yeah, thank you to Glenn and Sonia
28:10
Speaker 1: as always. So we're going to UH two million by
28:12
Speaker 1: June twenty one. And if you want to join us
28:15
Speaker 1: in this, we are not the least bit exclusive. For
28:18
Speaker 1: a very inclusive and welcoming group of people, you can
28:21
Speaker 1: go to UM www, dot kiva, k I v A
28:26
Speaker 1: dot org, slash team slash stuff you should know, okay,
28:31
Speaker 1: and if you want to know anything more about the
28:32
Speaker 1: five second rule, type five second rule in the search bar,
28:35
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, I said search bar. So
28:37
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mails it is Josh. Uh, this
28:42
Speaker 1: is we are just a few days away from our
28:43
Speaker 1: TV show premiere. That when we would be remiss. I
28:45
Speaker 1: know you're probably tired of hearing about it by now,
28:47
Speaker 1: I'm not We would be remiss if we didn't remind
28:50
Speaker 1: everyone that on Saturday night at ten pm Eastern on
28:54
Speaker 1: Science Jail, you're going to get two episodes of Stuff
28:57
Speaker 1: You Should Know, back to back, the premiere episode two
29:01
Speaker 1: following the season premiere of Ricky Gervais's Idiot Abroad. Yeah
29:06
Speaker 1: with Carl Pilkington. That comes on first, and then we
29:08
Speaker 1: come on at ten with two brand new the first
29:11
Speaker 1: two episodes of Stuff you Should Know the TV show.
29:13
Speaker 1: That's right, And if you do not have cable, if
29:15
Speaker 1: you're not, because as we have announced, you can purchase
29:18
Speaker 1: these episodes on iTunes after they are released the next day.
29:22
Speaker 1: And because we love everyone so much in the world,
29:25
Speaker 1: you can get the premiere episode for free on iTunes.
29:29
Speaker 1: So just seek it out, download it, watch it and
29:33
Speaker 1: make some noise over its Science channel and on Twitter too.
29:37
Speaker 1: Um and uh we think we think you're gonna like it.
29:40
Speaker 1: It's uh us and we play ourselves, but it's setting
29:43
Speaker 1: like a kind of a fictionalized version of the office,
29:46
Speaker 1: our office, and um there's podcasting and action and adventure
29:51
Speaker 1: and all sorts of goodness, so it should be hopefully
29:54
Speaker 1: everybody likes it. Yea. As we have said before, it's
29:57
Speaker 1: the real US in a fictional world. The spelling factual information.
30:00
Speaker 1: Yes that's a red tagline. All right. I hope you
30:04
Speaker 1: stuck around for this will sermail because it's pretty good.
30:07
Speaker 1: This is from Ben. Uh. Guys, my name has been
30:09
Speaker 1: I'm a thirty year old husband and father. Never consider
30:12
Speaker 1: myself a very smart man. I did mediocre in high school.
30:15
Speaker 1: Uh not because of lack of trying, but because being
30:19
Speaker 1: viewed as a lazy student and I was just socially
30:22
Speaker 1: awkward to be honest. My wife has talked me into
30:25
Speaker 1: catching up with your podcast, and since then I've gotten
30:28
Speaker 1: a smartphone and done so. And all I can say
30:29
Speaker 1: is thank you, guys, from the bottom of my heart. Um,
30:32
Speaker 1: it just helped me become a better husband and father.
30:35
Speaker 1: Let me explain. After high school, I became a father
30:38
Speaker 1: to a beautiful boy with an ex girlfriend who was
30:40
Speaker 1: not the best person. Due to some heart complications, my
30:43
Speaker 1: son Logan passed away four days after his first birthday.
30:48
Speaker 1: This resulted in me not following through with college, shutting
30:51
Speaker 1: down emotionally, basically becoming angry at the world and God
30:54
Speaker 1: for my son's passing. To put it bluntly, I became
30:56
Speaker 1: someone who I said I never would become. It was
30:58
Speaker 1: full of hate. Years that followed in my life was
31:01
Speaker 1: just gray as I went through the motions of life.
31:04
Speaker 1: Things turned around when I met my wife Jordan's, got
31:07
Speaker 1: married and had our son rating and yes I didn't
31:09
Speaker 1: name him Radin after Mortal Kombat. Uh. And then I
31:13
Speaker 1: was turned on your podcast after listening to over two
31:15
Speaker 1: hundred of them, you two have opened a hard spot
31:17
Speaker 1: in my heart. After listening to you guys and hearing
31:21
Speaker 1: how good natured you are, I myself have been trying
31:23
Speaker 1: to give everything in life a fair chance and have
31:26
Speaker 1: become more of a good Harvard person who no longer
31:29
Speaker 1: battles something bad within myself. I know right, I'm happier
31:33
Speaker 1: in life than ever before. And I have my wife
31:36
Speaker 1: and son and now Chuck and Josh to thank for helping.
31:40
Speaker 1: I'm trying to further my education. I can't stop reading
31:43
Speaker 1: and learning, and I save your show. So when my
31:45
Speaker 1: one year old son is old enough he can experience
31:48
Speaker 1: something that changes daddy's life for the better, just like
31:51
Speaker 1: he and his mommy did. Uh So, I can't thank
31:53
Speaker 1: you guys enough for all you've done without even knowing it.
31:56
Speaker 1: Sometimes all it takes is good hearts and a good
31:58
Speaker 1: podcast to make even a small difference. The guys are
32:02
Speaker 1: even Ohio, I would like to write a book a
32:04
Speaker 1: drink that is from Ben children man, Ben, thank you
32:07
Speaker 1: for that. We're not even trying. I did. I read
32:10
Speaker 1: this stuff and I'm just like, are you kidding me?
32:12
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool? What are you supposed to say to that?
32:15
Speaker 1: Thank you? So thanks Ben. Um. If you want to
32:19
Speaker 1: get in touch with chucking me about five second rule,
32:24
Speaker 1: how about this. We want to know the nastiest thing
32:26
Speaker 1: you've ever eaten, whether it was something that was prepared,
32:29
Speaker 1: something that touched the ground, tell us tell us your
32:33
Speaker 1: nasty eating story. Yeah, and if you're one of those kids.
32:36
Speaker 1: I had friends in elementary school that would have like
32:38
Speaker 1: gross eating contests, that would like throw mashed potatoes on
32:41
Speaker 1: the floor and then eat them. I explored that once.
32:43
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, maybe maybe I am
32:46
Speaker 1: that kid. Let's let's find out and I ate a
32:48
Speaker 1: sticker that was on the ground with some hairitas to it,
32:50
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, I need to keep seeking
32:53
Speaker 1: my persona because that one not me. Yeah, yeah, well
32:58
Speaker 1: we want to know about them, right that. I can't
33:00
Speaker 1: believe you held out me that one. That story. Tweet
33:03
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K Podcast, join us
33:06
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and
33:09
Speaker 1: as always, you can send us an email to Stuff
33:12
Speaker 1: Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
33:20
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
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