We all know that the world is a dirty place full of germs. Heck, that’s exactly why it’s been burned into your brain since kindergarten to repeatedly wash your hands. You’ve probably got a hosts of different bacteria living on your body at this very moment, but it’s a little different when you can actually see all of those germs you’ve acquired. The below images is a hand-print of Tasha Sturm’s 8-year-old son after an outdoor playing session. Gross.
The print represents three days of germ growth after the various yeasts and fungi were allowed to incubate.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, around 2.2 million children under the age of 5 die each year from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, and proper handwashing could protect around 1 out of 3 children who get sick with diarrhea and 1 out of 6 children who get ill from a respiratory infections like pneumonia. Not to gross you out too much, but “single gram of human feces—which is about the weight of a paper clip—can contain one trillion germs.”
Everything taken from the petri dish hand-print above is harmless and many of the bacteria are actually beneficial to our immune system, but even still, this should serve as a good reminder to WASH YOUR HANDS.