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Simple. Disgusting. Informative.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in preventing the spread of illnesses and infections in hospitals was embarrassingly simple: hand washing. In 1846, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that hand washing played a vital role in the spread of germs, and the practice soon became mandatory in hospitals. The simple act of scrubbing hands with soap and water literally saved lives.
Getting a kid to wash their hands, however, can be an uphill battle. While it's a common thing kids (don't) do, global perspective on the importance and effectiveness of hand washing has risen since the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study published by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in 2023, before the emergence of COVID-19, a survey found that only about 36% of people always washed their hands with soap, 48% sometimes used soap, and an unsettling 16% of respondents said they wash without soap. After COVID-19 emerged, however, more than 72% of respondents reported using soap every time they washed their hands. There's nothing like a pandemic (and perhaps the reality of FAFO) to strike fear into the hearts of those chronic under washers, but in 2019, one teacher did a simple experiment to show her students just how important hand washing is.
"We did a science project in class this last month as flu season was starting," teacher Dayna Robertson and classroom behavioral specialist Jaralee Metcalf wrote on Facebook. "We took fresh bread and touched it. We did one slice untouched. One with unwashed hands. One with hand sanitizer. One with washed hands with warm water and soap. Then we decided to rub a piece on all our classroom Chromebooks." Robertson later noted that they normally do make a point to sanitize the classroom Chromebooks, but didn't that day in the name of science.
Dexters Laboratory What A Fine Day For Science GIFGiphy
The bread was put into plastic bags and the germs were left to fester. The bread that had been touched by unwashed hands and the bread that had touched the Chromebook had the most mold. The bread that had been touched by hands washed with soap and water remained (relatively) good enough to eat.
This experiment has been done before, but Robertson expanded on it by testing the effectiveness of hand sanitizer. The bread that had been touched by hands cleaned with sanitizer also had a fair amount of mold on it, although not as much as the bread touched by unwashed hands.
The bread doesn't lie. Facebook/Jaralee Metcalf
"As somebody who is sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired," Robertson wrote, "wash your hands! Remind your kids to wash their hands! And hand sanitizer is not an alternative to washing hands!! At all!" It's kind of making us retroactively gag over seeing port-a-potties with hand sanitizer set up in lieu of sinks.
The experiment was prompted by a different science lesson. "We had just finished a science lesson on how leaves break down during winter. The kids were kind of grossed out by the mold, so we decided to run our own version using germs and mold from our own environment," Robertson told Scary Mommy.
Weirdly, the classroom experiment received some criticism. "Lots of people actually DEFENDED not washing their hands!" Robertson told Scary Mommy. "That was shocking! It really was just a simple classroom experiment to teach about mold but we have all learned more about how easily we can spread the germs we can't see."
In the 2019 lens, this lesson being about mold seems simple enough. All of us here in 2025, though, blessed (or cursed) with the experience of the pandemic, know that washing your hands really is as life-saving as Semmelweis proved nearly two centuries ago. Research done in 2020 and published in PubMed showed that individuals who washed their hands consistently were more likely to have lower rates of COVID-19 infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2024, hand washing also reduces respiratory illness like colds and flu in the general population by 16-21%, and reduces the number of people with diarrheal illnesses by 23-40%.
And to be sure, how we wash our hands is incredibly important. A quick rinse without scrubbing won't do the trick. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the proper technique for handwashing is to wet your hands, apply soap, and then run your soapy hands under the stream while rotating, rubbing, and scrubbing every inch of your hands for at least 20 seconds. Usually you can hit that mark by singing "Happy Birthday" twice. Then, rinse. When you're done, dry your hands with a clean towel. Check out this demonstration from the CDC:
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
The moral of the story is, please, please remember to always wash your hands. It really makes a difference.
This article originally appeared six years ago. It has been updated.
Former teacher of the year Lee Allen
For all of our disagreements in modern American life, there are at least a few things most of us can agree on. One of those is the need for reform in public education. We don't all agree on the solutions but many of the challenges are undeniable: retaining great teachers, reducing classroom size and updating the focus of student curriculums to reflect the ever-changing needs of a globalized workforce.
And while parents, politicians and activists debate those remedies, one voice is all-too-often ignored: that of teachers themselves. This is why a short video testimony from a teacher in the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County went viral. After all, it's hard to deny the points made by someone who was just named teacher of the year and used the occasion to announce why he will be leaving the very school district that just honored him with that distinction.
In a video carried by Fox5 Atlanta, 2022 Gwinnett County Public Schools Teacher of the Year Lee Allen breaks down what he sees as the overriding problems in the county's school system. While his comments are specific to that of Gwinnett County, it's virtually impossible to not see the overlap across all of America and how the problems have become exponentially more challenging as students have migrated back to in-person learning.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
"At the end of this year, I will be leaving Gwinnett County Schools, leaving behind the opportunity to submit for state teacher of the year, roughly $10,000 in salary, and most importantly, the students and colleagues I've built strong relationships with," Allen, a math teacher at Lawrenceville's Archer High School, says at the beginning of his remarks. "I'm leaving in hopes that I can regain the ability to do the job that I love."
Normally, one might assume teacher pay is the overriding issue for educators like Allen. But he makes it clear that he is, in fact, leaving money on the table to avoid what he deems as unacceptable changes to the student body and how the district manages its teachers and the learning environment. Here are his main grievances, in order:
A teacher speaks to students in a classroomImage via Canva
While Allen points fingers at administrators and student behavior, he also says that the pressures put on both students and teachers alike by COVID-19 had a catastrophic impact on learning. "The pandemic has acted as a catalyst and turned a slow negative trend into an exponential crisis," he says.
But he also offers some solutions, stating, "I won't list complaints without offering ideas for improvement."
"We all want the same thing and we cannot accomplish this without supporting one another," he says near the end of his remarks.
Lee Allen in his resignation remarksImage via YouTube
With more than 400,000 views already, it's clear his remarks resonated with people not just inside his school district.
There's almost nothing more important than how we educate our children. And while the national political debate centers on areas of far less importance generated to gin up controversy and campaign fundraising, it's families and local leaders who will need to do the heavy lifting of reprioritizing the fundamental principles of learning and leadership if we want an American educational system that can compete on the global stage in 2022 and beyond. After all, when literal award-winning educators like Allen are walking away, it's clear something more needs to be done.
This article originally appeared four years ago.
Plastic is a problem for ocean wildlife.
Sometimes taking care of our beautiful home planet looks like big, broad policies tackling issues like plastic pollution and habitat destruction. And sometimes it looks like taking the time to help one tiny creature stuck in an environmental bind.
In a YouTube video that's been viewed a whopping 20 million times, we see an example of the latter in action as some kind and compassionate divers attempt to convince an octopus to abandon the plastic cup it's using for protection and trade it for a sturdy shell. Pall Sigurdsson has shared dozens of underwater videos on YouTube, but watching this particular video from his dive off the coast of Lembeh, Indonesia, in 2018 almost feels like watching a Pixar short film.
luxo jr lamp GIF by Disney PixarGiphy
"We spent a whole dive and most of our air saving this octopus from what was bound to be a cruel fate," Sigurdsson wrote in the description of the video.
"The coconut octopus, also known as veined octopus, is born with the instinct to protect itself by creating a mobile home out of coconut or clam shells. This particular individual however has been trapped by their instincts and have made a home out of a plastic cup they found underwater."
It's not just that the flimsy plastic cup didn't provide the octopus adequate protection. Sigurdsson explained that a predator like an eel or a flounder would probably end up swallowing the cup with the octopus in it, likely killing both of them. Plus, even if the octopus abandoned the cup on its own, plastic simply doesn't belong in the ocean.
Plastic doesn't belong in the ocean.Photo credit: Canva
"We tried for a long time to give it shells hoping that it would trade the shell," he wrote. "Coconut octopus are famous for being very picky about which shells they keep so we had to try with many different shells before it found one to be acceptable."
If you think an octopus in a cup making a decision about shells doesn't sound riveting, just watch:
- YouTubeyoutu.be
The tentacles reaching out to test the weight of each shell, the divers searching for more options to offer it, the suspense of wondering whether the octopus really would abandon its pathetic plastic pollution protection...it's just too much.
Sigurdsson's other underwater videos are also fun to watch. He shared one of another veined octopus who seemed to have no interest in him but became intrigued with his diver friend, Gary. The way it reaches out to touch just the tip of his finger and then shyly retreats feels like such a clear communication with no words being said.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Octopuses are far more intelligent than anyone would have guessed before we started studying their behavior in earnest. They are known to solve puzzles, escape complicated mazes and traps, and take apart just about anything. It does make you wonder what these little guys were thinking when these divers were interacting with them. Was it curiosity? Judgment? An attempt at connection between species?
It's funny how one small interaction in one tiny portion of the vast ocean can say so much about us, for better and for worse. Human pollution is an enormous problem and saving one little octopus won't save the world, but it sure gives us hope and motivation to keep trying for the sake of the vast number of creatures that live in the ocean as well as our own.
You can find more underwater videos of ocean wildlife from Pall Sigurdsson on YouTube.
This article originally appeared four years ago.
British man goes on epic rant about Americans pronunciation of bologna
Turns out Americans have been saying bologna wrong and they're finding out in the most amusing way possible–a rant from a Brit. Luke Colson recently blew the minds of his American followers when he jumped online still in his car to rant about bologna of all things. If you didn't know bologna isn't just a luncheon meat made from an amalgamation of different processed meats. Bologna is also a place in Italy and pronounced more like the way it's spelled, which is what caused the initial confusion.
Colson heard people pronouncing the luncheon meat as "baloney" but couldn't understand why since it was spelled like Bologna, the place in Italy pronounced "bah-lone-yah." But it didn't take long for his followers to spill the details of where they learned how to pronounce the word, which in true American fashion, television was the culprit. An advertisement for Oscar Mayer from the 70s to be exact, you know the one...you're singing it in your head now.
But this Brit has had enough and needs American's to get it together, "Bologna is a place in Italy. B-o-l-o-g-n-a, Bologna. Bologna, okay? The sausage meat, which is that sort of slightly disgusting mixed meat sausage from Bologna made its way over to the United States of America and while it was here, the Bologna meat sausage became known as baloney. This is brand new information. I put it in a video the other day. Blew my mind."
It was in the comments of that video that he learned the supposed origin of why Americans pronounce the word as baloney. Turns out his rant was just getting started because after he mockingly sang the Oscar Mayer bologna jingle he went off on a tear about the luncheon meat company.
Food Dancing GIF by Oscar MayerGiphy
"'It's Oscar Mayer. You've gotta ask Oscar Mayer. We all grew up with Oscar Mayer" the man mocks before shouting, "what is Oscar Mayer?! Well I'll tell you what Oscar Mayer is. I'll tell you what Oscar Mayer is. This is what the advert in the [expletive] knows when. In the 1960s? There's this little kid and he's sitting on the grass and he's singing a [expletive] song about bolo...bologna being spelled bologna but said baloney but then at the end of that...and then at the end of the vid...(frustrated tongue tied noises)...and then at the end of the ad to make things even more confusing the guy, voiceover says...pronounces it completely different than bologna or baloney," Colson yells.
The humorous rant had people flocking to his comment section to sing along with the song now stuck in everyone's head, one person writes, "It was the 70s. I’m 59 and thanks for giving tribute to a piece of my childhood. I was singing it loud and proud!"
"I sang along 😂 But it's strange that I did not remember hearing the announcer say 'Bolona,'" another says.
"If logic was what you wanted, you should have moved to Canada. We're not the logic guys, they live upstairs," someone else jokes.
"Goodness this had you worked up. We grew up with that ad for decades. We just accept it crazy though it is," one person chimes in.
In one short exchange the confusion seems to be explained as one shares, "If it's the Italian city we say it correctly. If it is meat, we say it incorrectly." Colson seemingly agrees saying, "Ha ha all the more confusing!!"
"You guys have words like Worcestershire, and you’re on us about Baloney? 🤣🤣 I don’t blame you, it was confusing there for a bit," another shares.
The entire rant not only made people giggle but explained why the spelling of bologna never made sense, especially for those who grew up using phonics to learn how to read. So if you say bologna like baloney and weren't sure why it's spelled completely differently than it sounds, thank Oscar Mayer. But the jingle does come in handy when you're trying to remember how to spell bologna.
