- YouTuber Mark Rober showed just how quickly germs can spread all over a room by using invisible Glo Germ powder that glows under UV light.
- It's a particularly important lesson right now with the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
- Rober enlisted a teacher and one student in a third-grade class to have the powder dusted onto their hands.
- He used a UV light to show just how far the powder had spread by lunchtime.
- Glo Germ powder was found all over the floor, door handles, sinks, and other children's hands and faces.
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YouTuber Mark Rober gave everyone a lesson in how quickly and widely invisible germs can spread around.
He conducted an experiment on a classroom full of third-graders by dusting an invisible powder called Glo Germ onto the hands of the teacher and one student.
He told the teacher to shake hands with three random students at the start of the day then checked up on how far the powder had spread by lunchtime with a UV light.
The light revealed powder had made its way onto the floor, door handles, desks, sinks, the phone, and other children's hands and faces, even though they were pretty diligent about washing them.
"What's crazy is germs can live on a hard surface like this for up to nine days," Rober said. "And so you can see how important it is to disinfect things a sick person regularly touches."
Even people who are careful to wash their hands often can be caught out by touching things like their phones, where hundreds of germs reside.
Rober said the ultimate defense against catching a virus is to not touch your face.
"Your eyes, nose, and mouth are like the single weak spot on the Death Star when it comes to viruses," he said. "That's the only way they can get in to infect you."
The UV light showed that it's not just children who touch their faces either — the teacher had Glo Germ powder light up all over her forehead, nose, and chin too.
Rober tried it himself and was extra careful not to touch his face. However, he was shocked to see the powder light up all over his features as well.
"On average we touch our face 16 times an hour, which is why washing hands is so important," Rober said. "It's impossible to catch a virus directly through your hands … The problem is we use our hands to help the virus out by constantly giving it a ride to our figurative Death Star exhaust ports."
Watch the full video below.
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