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1:01

Listener supported. WNYC

1:04

Studios.

1:07

Happy Friday. This is Lulu. We

1:09

have hit you with some harder stuff the

1:11

last couple of weeks. So we thought we'd just

1:14

lighten things up with a lower

1:16

stakes thing, a lighter thing.

1:18

A classic Krolwich episode.

1:21

Today, Robert Krolwich is going to do

1:24

the thing he does, which is take a very small

1:26

question, run it through the scientific

1:28

process, and come out with something

1:30

that,

1:32

you know, changes how you see yourself

1:34

in relation to the world. So enjoy.

1:36

Funky hand jive. Wait, you're listening. Okay.

1:40

All right. Okay. All

1:43

right. You're listening

1:45

to Radiolab. Radiolab.

1:48

From WNYC. Yeah.

1:52

Rewind.

1:56

Can I just tell you a story? I

1:58

don't have a choice, do I? This

2:01

takes me back to when I was 14, Jack

2:05

Kennedy, John F. Kennedy was the President, and

2:08

he's very glamorous. I mean,

2:10

he was on television, he was fun to watch,

2:12

and he would go to mass in my

2:14

neighborhood in New York. When he comes to

2:16

New York, he'd go to a particular church

2:19

all the time, and just out of enthusiasm, some of

2:21

my friends and I would go and stand there and watch him just

2:23

walk up the steps where you can even see the President

2:25

of the United States and his wife. So... You

2:28

did this multiple times? Yes, because we were big

2:30

fans. And then, one day,

2:32

we went to do that, and I can't

2:35

remember whether he zipped by or zipped in, but

2:37

anyway, we missed it. And my friend

2:39

John said, damn. But he was a New York

2:41

kid, so he thought that would be interesting. He knew

2:43

the place where President Kennedy was staying, which was a famous

2:45

hotel on Madison Avenue, and he came up

2:47

with this crazy plan that he was going to ask for his aunt

2:50

when we walk into the lobby, so the Secret Service wouldn't

2:52

have to worry about us. So we go

2:54

to the hotel, he does the thing, we're

2:56

in the lobby, and then crazily,

2:58

the elevator door opens, and there is

3:01

President Kennedy steps out of the elevator with Jackie.

3:04

Whoa. She's immediately grabbed by these

3:06

reporters, and they're asking her something, and he's got nothing

3:08

to do, so he's a politician. He glances around, and

3:11

I am standing behind the pilot

3:13

plant, staring at him. And

3:15

so he steps towards the bush, and he reaches over to

3:17

the bush and he goes, hello, young man, I'm trying to like that. And

3:19

I couldn't speak, because there was so much phlegm coming

3:22

flooding into my throat that I feel like I might drown

3:24

standing up. But I took his hand,

3:27

and I shook him. And

3:30

then he released, and he went off to do something

3:32

else, and I was just staring at my hand. And

3:35

later that day, I said to my sister, I shook

3:39

President Kennedy's hand, and I

3:41

guess I'm not going to wash it for like two days,

3:44

two weeks maybe.

3:46

What did she say to you? I don't remember what she said,

3:49

but that's a funny thing to say

3:51

when 50 years later you're a science reporter.

3:59

Because at the moment I thought,

4:02

oh, Kennedy on Robert,

4:05

whoa. I didn't know that

4:07

was true. It was kind of like a dream thing. I think

4:09

everybody has this, I think, with celebrities, but I do.

4:13

But now it turns out we can examine

4:16

the question scientifically.

4:18

There's now a science that can do

4:20

that. What do you mean?

4:22

Well, first of all, we all know this. We're covered with

4:25

germs, with bacteria. But

4:27

what I didn't realize is that there are scientists

4:30

who say the bacteria on us, they

4:32

cling to us almost like for life, so you

4:34

can be identified by your

4:36

microbe. And these scientists

4:39

are now making the bold claim that

4:41

they can check those microbes to solve

4:43

crimes, to detect diseases,

4:45

to do public health

4:47

kind of things. I thought, well, really? I'm

4:49

going to, why not put them to

4:51

the test? Here he is. Are these for

4:53

the people? These are the people. And

4:56

go after this small little bit

4:58

of personal history I got. So

5:00

I decided to reproduce the

5:02

John F. Kennedy, Robert Krowich handshake.

5:05

What? I thought

5:10

we could have, I could find somebody

5:12

who would be President Kennedy who would shake my

5:14

hand, and we would measure and

5:16

calculate

5:17

and see. So I got a

5:19

team of producers from WNYC

5:21

Show Only Human to help me doing

5:23

this, and we found a scientist.

5:25

Oh, hey, your name again? Jack Gilbert. Jack

5:28

Gilbert is director of the Microbiome

5:30

Center at the University of Chicago. And

5:33

then I don't have President Kennedy around anymore,

5:35

so I got myself, you're going to be President Kennedy for

5:38

these purposes. Substitute President Kennedy.

5:40

Okay, sure. Can you do a JFK, by the way? Our

5:42

nation will put a man on the moon

5:44

and we'll clear them safely to you. No,

5:47

no, just... This is Neil deGrasse Tyson,

5:49

director of the Hayden Planetarium with the American

5:51

Museum of Natural History here in New York. Well,

5:54

have you ever had your hand shaken by a person that you

5:56

feel like you'd like to

5:58

have his or her? stuffs

6:01

to steam. Yeah I'm

6:03

not that

6:04

weird or creepy. No there's

6:07

no part of anyone else that

6:10

I just want to put. What about

6:13

if you got Carl Sagan's underwear?

6:15

Would you keep Carl Sagan's underwear?

6:18

No, but I have come to love and embrace all

6:24

bacteria

6:26

that want a part of my body. You

6:28

are awesome. So am I your

6:30

man for this? You are absolutely the man

6:32

for this. And, and, and,

6:36

I will so

6:39

pick up food that fell on the floor and eat it. I'll

6:42

do that. I don't even wait five seconds. Which

6:45

is always, we knew was bullshit anyway. Let

6:49

me explain what it is I want to do. I don't think

6:51

no one exactly knows the answer to this

6:53

question. But if a person shakes

6:55

another person's hands for an ordinary

6:58

interval, then the question is

7:00

how much a person A lands

7:03

on person B and how much a person A

7:05

stays

7:05

on person B, but most crucially

7:07

for how long? Presumably there's

7:10

an exchange. Yes. So we're nicking

7:12

off back and forth. You do have enormous hands

7:14

though now that I'm looking at them. Yeah, I know

7:16

when I try to find gloves. It

7:18

doesn't work. So it's 3XL. All

7:21

right. So just so you can give

7:23

the fact that you are carrying

7:26

all these microbes on you. First

7:28

of all, where are they predominantly? They're all over. So

7:30

every mucosal surface in your body, so your mouth,

7:33

your gastrointestinal tract all the way down,

7:35

your skin, your fingernails, your

7:37

urigensal tract, your ears, every

7:39

part of you that's your butt, especially

7:42

your butt, is covered in bacteria. And

7:44

just sitting here, you're actually releasing

7:46

into the air around you. Think

7:49

Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon, remember? About 36

7:52

million bacterial cells an hour. So

7:54

every minute... How do they come off of me? They

7:56

are literally leaving off on the surface of your skin

7:58

cells that you're shedding. through your respiration,

8:01

coming out of your nose and your mouth. Also detaching.

8:04

So a lot of them dry

8:06

out on the surface and they can literally just drift

8:09

off as dust. But just so I understand

8:12

the anatomy of the room, all over

8:14

this room on the doorknob, on the table

8:16

surface, on his pants, on

8:19

the desk, and on the chairs, there's

8:21

Neil everywhere? A lot of them are colonic,

8:24

Neil. So a lot of them are actually coming

8:26

out of your pants and

8:28

they are on the surface of the chair and they deposit

8:30

a fine cutscene or a slavic wood.

8:33

We I think we understand what you mean. Yeah, they put

8:35

back there. Why would that be? It's the largest

8:37

resource. But he's not a headlock. He has to get

8:40

out of me. And he does all the time.

8:42

All the time. So that means... Even

8:44

though he's not a bathroom? The surfaces of chairs would have

8:46

them most. Yes. Alright,

8:48

so now... Let me just... Time question

8:51

real quick. So Jack needs about 20 minutes for

8:53

us to do this handshake experiment. That's by the way producer

8:55

Kenny Malone. Why don't we start the

8:57

experiment now? And then we have

8:59

time to talk in between. Okay. Alright,

9:02

what are you going to do? So what we're going to do is we have

9:04

little testes in... Anyway, I'm not offering you my butthole

9:07

for this experiment. It

9:09

doesn't mean I am offering you my butt

9:11

microbes. Just stand up. So we're going

9:13

to do hands. Absolutely.

9:16

So we have these little sterile tubes. So each tube,

9:18

the green cap tube, has a sterile

9:20

swab in it with a completely sterile tip.

9:22

We're going to open that up and very quickly

9:25

rub very vigorously each of your

9:27

hands. So your palm, the inside of your fingers.

9:30

And we're going to do that very vigorously and then put it as quickly as

9:32

possible back into the sterile tube. So this is your control

9:34

sample? This is the starter. The starter, okay. And

9:37

then you are going to shake hands with the young man

9:39

over there, right? With Robert. And

9:41

we're going to definitely... I'm trying to see how many you

9:43

have received from Neil and how many Neil

9:46

has received from Robert. Wait,

9:48

he is swabbing your hands before

9:50

you handshake so that he can figure out what's the

9:52

baseline that you've got on both your hands. Prehandshake.

9:55

Right. So you're going to have different bacteria on

9:57

your hands, you and Neil? Yes. So

10:00

this is where it gets very interesting. So you have very

10:02

specific types of bacteria, and he

10:04

has very specific types of bacteria, but they're unique

10:07

to you. I mean, I guess, like, I mean, like if I just

10:09

think about it for a second, like the two of you had different days,

10:11

you arrive in this office, you've probably

10:13

touched different places, you've eaten different

10:15

things. So, okay, maybe you have a little bit of difference,

10:18

but in general, you

10:20

are both men living in New York

10:22

City, breathing the same air, riding the same subways.

10:25

Yes, exactly. So why would

10:27

you be that different from one

10:29

another? Well, because there's one very important

10:31

difference between us. Okay.

10:34

We have different mothers. So

10:38

have you been told anything like what this is? I've heard

10:40

a little bit

10:40

about the microbiome, but I'm happy

10:42

to hear more. This is Dr. Siobhan Dolan.

10:44

I'm an obstetrician-gynecologist, and I'm actually

10:46

a clinical geneticist as well. And we brought her in

10:48

because she knows more than most when it comes

10:50

to moms and babies. During my training

10:52

years, probably delivered 100 babies a year, so

10:55

that was about 500 babies. Then I was in

10:57

private practice at Yale New Haven Hospital for a bunch

10:59

of years, and I probably delivered another

11:01

couple hundred. And I have three kids myself,

11:03

so I was on the other side as well.

11:05

Okay, and she says, as a fetus, before

11:09

you're born, you're, you know,

11:10

exposed to what's in the amniotic

11:12

fluid, but it's a pretty

11:14

clean setup in utero.

11:16

But

11:17

then you go through the vagina, and the vagina

11:19

is just a host of bacteria

11:22

and, you know, yeast and amniotic

11:24

fluid. There's blood.

11:26

And this moment is, in essence, your bacterial

11:28

baptism. Right, exactly. Because

11:30

at this point, you're this pristine, unadulterated

11:33

hunk of biomass. The bacteria...

11:36

They're like, give me a ride. I'm going to jump

11:38

on. Yeah, the bacteria colonize

11:41

that surface, because that's what bacteria

11:43

do. And so finally, when

11:46

the baby's born, the

11:48

doctors, they take it. You

11:49

make sure there's stable breathing, and then

11:52

right up onto mom, you start to immediately

11:54

promote the bonding and skin to skin.

11:59

own case if you can remember.

12:03

What I remember is just grabbing

12:05

for him like you're mine and I've

12:07

been waiting nine months to meet you and

12:10

here you are and like just kind

12:12

of embracing him and looking in

12:14

his eyes and so there's a sort of bonding

12:16

there that I will

12:17

never forget. And in the same moment

12:20

you're going to get some micro bonding too. It's

12:23

a very dynamic hug

12:25

and bacteria go pew, they leap from

12:28

the mom's skin onto the baby. I

12:30

did this for both my children, I took

12:32

both of them onto my bare chest at birth. You

12:34

wanted to compete against your wife? Absolutely.

12:38

Maybe a little bit of daddy was a helpful

12:40

thing, who knows? So yeah,

12:43

that was the reason I did it. And the thing is...

12:45

We'll start. So I'll do your first

12:48

one. The strains of bacteria that we get in those

12:50

first few hours... Okay, so give

12:52

me your right hand. ...and then to a lesser degree the bacteria

12:54

that we meet later in the first year of our life

12:57

when we pick weird things in our mouth

12:59

or the dog comes by. You ready? Yeah.

13:02

Those strains of bacteria stick with us. Ready, set, go!

13:04

Ready, set, go! So we're going to swab

13:06

it as much as possible. Even the bacteria

13:09

the Jack will find... It tickles. Now

13:11

on Neil's hand... Now we'll do Robert. Alright.

13:14

...and on my hand... All over the fingers. ...and

13:16

in between... Okay.

13:17

...our descendants of those first moments of contact. There we are and

13:20

we'll pop that back in there.

13:22

And crazily enough... Gotcha. ...if

13:25

you try to get rid of your bacterial

13:27

inheritance, you know, put

13:29

a salve on, get rid of all your skin bacteria, take

13:32

lots of antibiotics and get rid of all your tummy bacteria,

13:34

and then move to some completely different part of the world

13:36

where the food is different and the temperature is different,

13:38

still the bacteria you got from your

13:41

mom will come creeping back. Why?

13:44

Why would that be? Well, there's

13:46

something in ecology called the founder

13:49

effect whereby the first

13:51

organisms to get there and to be successful

13:53

in an environment, they

13:56

alter the trajectory of the rest of the

13:58

ecosystem and change the environment. how it develops,

14:01

right? So if a tree

14:03

species, certain type of tree lands on

14:06

an island and becomes dominant,

14:08

then it will support the types of birds and

14:11

the types of monkeys and the types of insects that love

14:13

that type of tree. And

14:15

so the same is true in the microbiome.

14:18

So you have a lifelong

14:20

partnership with the bacteria you interacted with.

14:22

So, we know that Neil and I each

14:25

have a unique mix of microbes, almost

14:27

to the point where they're like a fingerprint. But

14:29

if we shake hands, just a mere, hello, hello,

14:32

handshake, how much of his is going to get

14:34

on me? How much of mine is going to get on him? And

14:36

most important of all is how long will the

14:38

exchange, microbially,

14:41

last? So next step, you guys got to shake

14:43

hands. I want you to shake hands, like just as if you were meeting

14:45

in the hall and you were like, hey, Neil, or hey,

14:47

Robert, nice to meet you. Just

14:50

shake hands. Okay. Yeah.

14:52

Ready? I

14:55

know. It's like, wait, wait. Ready?

14:58

One, two, three. Robert, good to meet you. Hi, how

15:00

are you? Good to see you again. Good to see you again.

15:03

All right. Okay. Now, Neil, right

15:05

hand. Go. Can you feel it? I

15:08

feel it. Are you going to grab me a little bit? Oh yeah.

15:10

Just my index finger too, because he got a little... Because the palms didn't touch

15:13

as much as the fingers. And so every five minutes for the next 20

15:15

minutes... And then we're going to

15:17

swab your hand again. Jack swab both Neil's

15:19

hand and my hand. I'm actually pulling off a slight

15:22

patina of bacteria, but... Just checking to see if

15:24

any bacteria moved and for

15:26

how long. So wait, what happened? Did

15:28

you... Wait, what happened? Well, why

15:30

would I tell you now when we have the advantage of a

15:32

short break? We'll

15:35

be right back. Radiolab

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18:08

Let's create.

18:11

Chad, Robert, Radiolab. By the way, do you have

18:13

a hint of the outcome of this thing we've just

18:15

done? Like, okay, just before we went to break,

18:17

Robert Neal had just shaken hands and

18:19

Jack Gilbert was gonna swab those

18:21

hands, right? Mm-hmm. One minute after the handshake

18:24

and then around every five minutes for about 25 minutes.

18:27

What exactly does he do after he swabs them? Well, he takes our bacteria

18:30

back to the lab and he identifies our bacteria

18:33

by their DNA. Yeah, that's exactly

18:35

it. I mean, it strikes me. This is a whole

18:37

new science, isn't it? I mean, like, there are

18:39

a thousand things you could wonder about.

18:42

Well, yes, it is a whole new science. It's

18:44

a science that's on the cutting edge. We

18:46

know we're still researching and developing it

18:49

and it will take many years before we're ready for

18:51

primetime. But Jack says they are now at

18:53

the phase where they can look into all kinds of different

18:55

applications for this new microbiome

18:58

detecting ability. Take, for example,

19:00

forensics. Imagine if somebody

19:02

comes into a room and does an evil

19:05

deed. Right now, we know that when

19:07

somebody interacts with that space for 15 minutes,

19:10

they leave behind enough of a signature for

19:13

us to be able to detect 30 minutes later.

19:16

If I had to pick between three people or

19:18

four people that were to break into a room, there's

19:21

a good possibility that I could detect which one of

19:23

them had broken into that room. Wow. And

19:25

they're only gonna get better and better, he

19:27

says. Do you think maybe one day you'll be able to track

19:29

somebody, like, outside, moving

19:31

around, purely based

19:34

on the bacteria that they leave behind? That's exactly

19:36

what we're investigating. He also says being

19:38

able to identify bacteria in a town sewer

19:40

system will be really

19:43

useful in helping us to predict a

19:45

potential outbreak. By noticing that there's

19:47

a disease-causing bacteria right in the

19:49

sewage so you can go to town, and before

19:51

anyone begins to show symptoms, you could say something like,

19:54

wait a second, we've got to quarantine, vaccinate, we've

19:56

got to do something here. And nip it in the bud,

19:58

if you will, before it becomes... a problem.

20:01

And as you may have heard, there's plenty of research looking

20:03

at the microbiome inside of you. It's

20:06

revolutionizing medicine. I mean, we

20:08

already have evidence that we can determine

20:10

whether somebody will have a bad response

20:12

to a drug based on the bacteria

20:15

that are present inside them. So we can screen

20:17

them using their microbiome to

20:19

determine if they have that likely outcome.

20:22

But for now... So come on, yes. Come

20:24

on in. Back to this absolutely crucial

20:27

and breathtaking experiment. So

20:29

let me just quickly remind you of the situation

20:31

we last left you. So a couple of weeks later,

20:34

we got the results from Jack. And so I decided

20:36

to go to Neil to deliver them. And

20:39

just to set up expectations here, Jack

20:41

told us what he expected was immediately

20:44

after our handshake, a little bit of me would be on Neil,

20:46

a little bit of Neil would be on me and

20:48

that, you know, pretty fast

20:50

the bacteria would die

20:52

and be gone. However,

20:54

I

20:55

am very happy to say that

20:57

is not what happened. What percentage

21:00

change would you guess you

21:03

caused on me? Of me on you?

21:05

Uh, 10%. My,

21:09

I can't imagine it. I would say 1%, 10%, but not

21:11

much less than 1%. Well

21:16

it was less than 10 when they

21:18

came back. It was significantly

21:20

less than 10.

21:24

Okay. It was zero. Zero.

21:27

Zero. Well

21:28

it can't be zero. It would be below their capacity. It was

21:30

below their capacity. It was a low detectable rate. Right,

21:33

okay. Actually they found a teeny number of bacteria

21:35

but they died. There was essentially nothing. Huh.

21:38

Nothing from Neil. Yes. Nothing.

21:41

It's just odd. Should I

21:43

put it that way? I mean, that

21:45

was quite shocking. We were expecting

21:48

there to be a lot more bacteria being transferred

21:50

and to have an exchange of microbes.

21:53

So one person picks up 10 bacteria,

21:55

the other person picks up 10, 12 bacteria. I

21:58

didn't think you might have washed your hand and

21:59

I don't think so. No, no, there was

22:02

no sabotage or anything. You

22:04

could use an alcohol wipe or warm water? No, I

22:06

hate antibacterial.

22:08

I don't use what he called a Purell. I

22:11

never use any of it. So for reasons that are

22:13

at this moment totally unknown, Neil's

22:16

bacteria simply failed completely

22:19

to affect my hand. The

22:21

other side of this equation is, what would

22:23

you guess the presence of my microbes

22:26

on you was percentage-wide? Okay, what I know from

22:28

physics of surfaces is,

22:31

if they have approximately

22:33

the same

22:34

coefficient of friction,

22:36

then it's a complete

22:38

two-way street. So if I gave you nothing,

22:40

you would have given me nothing, is my guess. Ha!

22:43

Here's what happened. He definitely

22:46

picked up bacteria from you, and

22:48

that led to quite a substantial disruption.

22:51

It turns out, I swamped

22:53

your hand. You're

22:56

telling me you were skank nasty? I...

22:58

I... Ruled you! I

23:01

don't know what happened. They don't understand

23:03

what happened. You were a skank... I came on

23:05

to you... Skank funky. The percentage

23:09

before the handshake was that you and I were 60%

23:11

the same, 40% different. Post-shake,

23:14

you were more than 75% correlated. Well,

23:18

I... He was the... You

23:21

made him more you by 15% at least. I

23:24

was swerving all over again.

23:26

I'm slightly proud and kind of trouble

23:28

all the edges at the same time. Not

23:30

only did you get my microbes, but my

23:32

kept staying and staying and staying. Every

23:35

time they swamped, I was still there.

23:38

Six minutes later, 12 minutes later... That's

23:40

nasty. Could it have been an hour later? Am I

23:42

still on his hand? Yeah, I mean,

23:45

there's no indication that they were in decay. When

23:47

I left, you were covered with... Really?

23:51

That's a record show he beat his chest

23:53

in that moment. It looks like there was a possibility

23:55

that some of them could have gone on

23:58

Adam Finite. And... night

24:00

and what do you mean you think that I might stay on

24:02

him? What I think is that

24:04

there's a high probability that

24:07

some of those organisms once they set up shop on his

24:09

hand in those initial 20 minutes could

24:11

stay on his hand. What you mean like forever?

24:13

Like forever and ever? There is a possibility.

24:16

Wow. There is a possibility.

24:18

Precisely. Do

24:25

we have any idea whether what we've just described

24:27

is typical of a common handshake experience?

24:30

My gut feeling is this is atypical.

24:32

Why? Because they may be all

24:34

out competed. Jack says to understand just

24:36

how strange this result is, think

24:39

about it this way, two hands coming

24:41

together. It's like taking a rainforest

24:44

from Bolivia and dumping it on

24:46

top of a rainforest in Brazil

24:49

and wondering whether any of the

24:51

trees from the Bolivian rainforest will take

24:53

root and you know and adapt

24:55

and become prolific in that environment. Oh, so the invaders

24:57

don't really have a huge shot here then?

25:00

No. Your bacteria have

25:02

home field advantage. They are abundant

25:04

and they are dominant in that environment. So

25:06

we would generally suspect that very

25:08

quickly the invading microbes start to die,

25:11

they're killed off, they starve and

25:14

they just become inactive. So it happens and

25:16

it's over and nobody wins? Precisely. There's

25:19

mutual decay. So

25:22

am I now a successful invasive species

25:24

on his hand? Wait, some of your microbes

25:27

are successful invasive species but yeah, absolutely.

25:30

How would you explain my

25:32

success? What we think actually happened

25:34

is that something disrupted Neil's

25:37

ecosystem, right? And

25:39

we think based on the analysis

25:41

that there was a streptococcus which

25:43

is usually quite rare but that doesn't sound so good

25:45

streptococcus. Well there are lots of species

25:48

of streptococcus but not all of them are pathogenic.

25:51

So there was a streptococcus that

25:53

was very abundant on your hand

25:55

at the beginning that was transferred to

25:57

Neil's hand and we see that transfer occurring.

26:00

And that streptococcus somehow disrupted

26:03

Neil's ecosystem and allowed for

26:06

a greater transfer of bacteria

26:08

from your hand to his hand. Oh,

26:11

man. That's so interesting. So you have, like, a little

26:13

band of, like, murderous little bacteria

26:15

that went and cleared

26:17

away the forest and then lit so that the rest of you could

26:19

come in and colonize. I don't know. I don't think

26:22

anybody knows the answer to that question. All I

26:24

know is that I'm all over the man.

26:27

I don't mind some of Robert slathered

26:30

on my body. That's fine. Do you feel any defensiveness

26:33

towards the fact that he managed to

26:35

conquer your microbiome and yet yours was

26:38

unable to do the same to him? That, by the way,

26:40

is producer Simon Adler. So

26:42

the word conquer in that context,

26:44

I would reword the sentence and say, my

26:47

microbiome was perfectly content staying

26:49

where it is. And apparently, Robert's

26:51

microbiome can't

26:57

wait to get the hell off his body. Oh,

27:00

man. I came here thinking

27:03

I would find out how long President Kennedy stayed

27:05

on me. Now there's

27:07

suddenly a new question. Because if

27:09

he's a cool cucumber, it's how long you

27:12

stayed on him. Yeah. Yeah.

27:19

I believe the destination is to make a difference.

27:22

To achieve a true difference between

27:24

this 16 days of landing

27:27

a man in the moon and the sun.

27:33

Yeah. Maybe you're the anomaly. Yeah.

27:36

You're the creepy sweaty man with

27:38

wet palms. That's what you come here for.

27:42

The riposte.

27:56

Good, good, good.

27:59

Thanks to astrophysicist and author Neil

28:02

deGrasse Tyson for putting

28:04

up with this shenanigans. I

28:06

can go five days without a shower

28:09

and you wouldn't know it.

28:10

The man is smelling his armpits for the moment but we'll

28:12

just overlook that moment. I

28:14

just don't smell. Let me

28:17

smell your armpit. I don't want you to

28:19

smell my armpit. What if it smells terrible?

28:22

It's on the way to smelling

28:24

bad. Oh yes. But it's not repulsive. I'm

28:26

never coming back to it. She's being nice. I'm

28:28

not

28:28

coming back.

28:42

This story was produced by Simon Adler.

28:45

Big thanks to Jared and myself who did a lot of the technical

28:48

work, the lab work that gave us our microbial

28:50

analysis. Also to the Montefiore

28:52

Medical Center. Also to science

28:54

writer and author Ed Young whose book I Contain

28:57

Multitudes is a primer on all things

28:59

microbiomic. And it was talking

29:02

to Ed where I began thinking, oh yeah, that

29:04

Jack Kennedy handshake. So that's how this whole thing got started.

29:07

And then when things really got going, that's

29:09

when the team at WNYC's Only

29:11

Human kicked in. That's Amanda Aronchik,

29:13

Elaine Chen, Kenny Malone, Julian Weinberger.

29:16

These are the ones who were with

29:18

me all the way and stuck with this

29:21

whole crazy thing with the swabs

29:23

and whatever. And actually next week they are putting

29:25

on their own show which involves a microbial

29:28

robbery. That is, can you catch the robber if

29:30

all you can see is the microbes? I believe your house

29:32

figures into that. Yes, there's an actual

29:35

robbery in my home. Yes. Onlyhuman.org.

29:38

And also go to our website. Radiolab.org. Because

29:40

along with Only Human, we are putting up a very

29:43

short animation of the handshake

29:46

by Nate Milton, which is,

29:49

it's just gloriously

29:51

weird. Oh, and quick reminder, you can listen

29:53

to Radiolab on Spotify. Okay, Jed,

29:56

I would shake your hand, but I'm not talking

29:58

to you anymore.

30:01

I'm trying to keep you in this.

30:08

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad

30:11

and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu

30:13

Miller and Manta Dasar are our co-hosts.

30:16

Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our

30:18

staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy

30:21

Bloom, Becca Bressler, Katie

30:23

Foster-Keys, W. Harry Fortuna,

30:25

David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez,

30:28

Sindhu Jnanasambadam, Matt

30:30

Kielty, Annie McEwan, Alice

30:33

Neeson, Alyssa Jong Perry,

30:35

Zahra Kari, Sarah Sombach, Ariane

30:38

Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly

30:40

Webster. With help from Timmy Broderick. Our

30:42

fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily

30:45

Krieger, and Natalie Middleton.

30:47

Hi,

30:48

my name is Michael Smith. I'm calling from Pennington,

30:50

New Jersey.

30:51

Support for Radiolab's science

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programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty

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