Original subtitles

Do not try any of the experiments

You are about to see at home.

You heard him. Don't do it.

On this groundbreaking episode of "mythbusters"...

Oh, man. Someone here didn't flush.

...Adam and jamie get down and dirty...

Oh! Gross!

...As they tackle two viewer tales about toilets.

First, there's hot air...

feel the power.

...As the guys try to solve a classic hand-drying dilemma.

Oh, yeah!

I do this in every airport I get to.

Then they flush out which communal cubicle

Is the most contaminated.

Oh, this is nasty!

Meanwhile, grant, kari, and tory...

That's an earthquake coming.

...Drop, cover, and hold...

...As they find if, during the shake of a quake...

- This is terrifying! - Whoa!

...The best survival solution

Is to dive for the doorway.

Can the mythbusters bring down the house,

Or can they bring down the house?!

Who are the mythbusters?

Adam savage... Whoa!

That's science. ...And jamie hyneman.

I'm ready!

Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.

Together with grant imahara...

Oh, it's burrowing!

...Kari byron...

It always makes me feel dangerous.

...And tory belleci.

There's something you don't see every day.

They don't just tell the myths.

They put them to the test.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

First up, it's time to get down and dirty.

Hey, man. Sorry about that.

I won't ask what kept you.

Yeah, the call of nature. But get this.

While I was sitting there, I was thinking

Of a couple of toilet stories that we could test.

Seriously? Yeah.

The first one involves those blow-dryer jet dryers

In public restrooms

That are supposed to be super-sanitary.

There's a myth going around that they are, in fact,

Less sanitary than a regular, old paper towel.

Huh.

The second one involves testing

Which stall in a public restroom

Is, in fact, the cleanest.

great. We get to spend time in a public restroom.

Do you mind if we start with a hand dryer first?

Not at all.

There are over 12 million hand dryers in the u.S. Alone.

So can they really be a hygiene horror show?

Well, the theory to this myth is twofold.

First, dryers supposedly purge fewer pathogens

Than their paper counterparts.

And second, they can also fan a fog of micro miasma

That's a contamination catastrophe.

But will this myth be hot air?

Aah!

This story doesn't make any sense to me.

How so?

Well, if you're drying your hands,

That implies that you've washed them.

Absolutely.

And if you've washed your hands,

You've removed all the bacteria.

So whether a drying method is cleaner than another

Is irrelevant.

Right. I see your point.

But only some people use the full soap and water

For washing their hands.

Some people, they just get their hands wet

Before drying them off.

Why don't we test both of those

And see which is the proper worst-case scenario

For testing hand towel versus dryer?

Okay. That works.

So, how do people wash their hands?

Well, to my way of thinking,

There are three things people do in a restroom

Regarding washing their hands.

The first is...

...They pretend to wash their hands.

The second thing people do is get their hands wet

But use no soap.

The third thing people do --

And the thing we all know you should do --

Is wash their hands with soap.

So, first thing's first.

Jamie and I are gonna wash our hands

Using each of those techniques

And compare the bacterial loads

To see if jamie is, in fact, right.

Does washing your hands in soap and water

Leave them completely clean?

And first to go is adam...

... Who, after each cleaning custom,

Hands over to the hyneman.

I'm swabbing adam's hands with a soy-based growth medium,

So if there's any bacteria on his hands, I'm gonna find it.

Once jamie's also swabbed for science...

...It's time for germ germination.

Okay. adam first.

The process is pretty simple.

We've collected our samples.

We spread them evenly across soy agar in a petri dish.

And we put them in an incubator.

We're gonna let them sit there overnight.

We'll come in in the morning and see what we've got.

And sure enough, 24 hours later...

Let's see what kind of surprise we have.

all right.

Well, the soap wash...

Nada.

...Frickin' nothing.

Yep, the soap plate's great,

Which cannot be said of the water wash.

How come your bacteria are bigger than mine?

Sometimes that's just the way it works.

And as for the no wash...

Whoa! Gross!

So, the whole reason we were doing this test

Is because jamie suggested

If you wash your hands with soap and water

And it eliminates all the bacteria,

Who cares about the drying method?

There's no bacteria to be more or less clean with.

And it turns out he's right. Look at that.

Washing our hands with soap and water yielded no bacteria

That we could find on this petri dish,

But when we only pretended to wash our hands,

When we rinsed them in water but used no soap,

Check out what we found.

Ugh!

So, this is the method that we are going to use

To test the cleanliness of air dryers versus paper towels.

And the first task for that test is to rustle a restroom.

We're here to test whether air-powered hand dryers

Spread germs around a bathroom more than paper towels do.

And so, of course, to test that, we need a bathroom.

One bathroom coming up.

It's all hands on deck

As the guys set up an experimental setup.

We call this "hiding the crime."

See, ugly seam... Pretty seam.

It's just that easy.

...With a sink...

Perfect.

...And a room divider, a blow-dryer...

Feel the power.

...And a towel dispenser...

It works.

...Their banged-up bathroom's ready to lend this myth a hand.

oh, yeah. That was the last paper towel.

And it looks like you're gonna have to get some more.

Those hands look pretty wet.

I know it's none of your business,

But that was the last paper towel, yeah.

How you doing?

Next up...

A myth that's shaken, not stirred.

Okay. So, I've got a myth that's ready to rumble.

All right. What is it?

The myth is that the best place to be in an earthquake

When it hits your house is in the doorway.

Yeah. That's what they've been telling us since we were kids,

But, I mean, isn't the new technique

To get under something and hang on?

True. That is the current advice,

But some fans still believe

The doorway's the best place to be,

And that is what they want us to put to the test.

All right. It sounds like it's time to shake for science.

No. Not that kind of shake.

Oh.

That's what I'm talking about.

Hey.

What's the matter? Earthquake!

There's no doubt that earthquakes

Can literally rock your world.

Oh, my god. We're having an earthquake.

Wait a minute. Hold on, hold on.

But when the earth moves...

Should you really dive for the doorway,

Or will this myth be at fault?

All right. So, I love this story,

But I foresee a couple of problems.

Okay. Like what?

Well, first of all,

Doesn't the answer depend on the type of house you're in,

How it was constructed, how old it is?

True. So why don't we test this

On a couple of different kinds of homes?

First, a newer, sort of wooden-style house

And then maybe an older masonry one.

Okay, fair enough.

But then there's a second problem.

We can't just sit around waiting for an earthquake to happen.

Well, what we could do

Is find one of those giant shake tables

And see if they'd let us borrow it.

You know what? I know just the place.

Now, we are testing the myth that during an earthquake,

It is best to stand in a doorjamb in a building.

Now, ever since I was a kid growing up in california,

That is what they told us, but I don't know if that's true.

So we are here at the california academy of sciences,

And they are gonna let us use their earthquake shake table

So we can get to the bottom of this myth.

Let's hope we don't break it.

Yeah. Breaking this museum masterpiece would be bad news.

oh!

So, first, the guys go in for a trial tremor.

All right. You guys ready for an earthquake?

oh, my god!

Look at the lamp!

I want out of here!

This is terrifying!

Thanks to a battery of air bladders,

The shake table can simulate

San francisco's 1906 nightmare --

The 15th most energetic earthquake in u.S. History.

But given its engineering excellence...

Save the bobbleheads!

...Are they really gonna let the mythbusters meddle with it?

Holy moly! We're all gonna die!

Well, since you already have a shake table,

We were talking about making a brick-and-mortar-style building,

As well as a wood-structure building.

Do you think maybe we could just use yours

And shake them till they fall down?

Um, well, it sounds like a great idea,

But this is actually a working museum,

So maybe you'll have to build your own or something.

Okay.

So, how does your shake table

Imitate the forces of an earthquake?

Well, we don't do the "z" plane, which is up and down.

We actually do the "x" and the "y" direction,

And we do that movement

Because that's the strongest motion in an earthquake.

All right. Well, thank you very much for all the information.

I think we got a lot of building to do.

That's great.

So, we have visited the california academy of sciences'

Earthquake table,

And it is awesome.

We're all gonna die!

And, basically, we're gonna copy it

But make it our own "mythbusters" style.

The first step with that is to build a model,

And that is what all of these cylinders

Are gonna be pushing and pulling,

Just to see what we're getting ourselves into.

With a build as mind-boggling as this...

Look, I know it looks like a mess right now,

But it's totally gonna make sense in a minute.

...Grant's starting with a proof of concept.

And if this 2x2 model shakes...

Perfect. ...Rattles...

...And rolls...

...The guys will cue the heavy metal

As they attempt to build its way bigger brother.

It's a fine adjustment tool.

So, our earthquake shake table concept model is complete.

Now, what this is,

Is a load-bearing platform supported by castors.

It's got actuators in the "x" and "y" direction to shake it.

What we're interested in

Is what happens to the house after it's been collapsed

When subjected to earthquake-magnitude forces --

Kind of like this.

Whew! I'd call that about a 10.

There's no doubt

That their shrimp shaker's the business,

But next, it's time to build the beast.

Coming up next on "mythbusters"...

Where is the safest place to be in an earthquake?

Is it the doorway or someplace else?

I'd say someplace else.

maybe arizona.

Can the humble hand dryer really create a pathogen paradise,

Or is this myth bathroom baloney?

Aah!

To find out,

The mythbusters have rustled up the recipe.

I do this in every airport I get to.

Oh, yeah!

And it's almost time to get cooking.

The myth is that drying your hands with an air blower

Is less sanitary than using a paper towel.

In order to test this,

We'll be putting a bacterial marker on the hands

Of each of our 16 volunteers

And then swabbing them both before and after

They use each of these devices.

If the myth is true,

We should see far more bacteria on their hands

After air drying

Than after using the paper towel.

With the volunteers to hand,

Next, jamie's special brew can be uncorked.

This is a culture of e. Coli bacteria.

Now, e. Coli can sometimes be harmful,

But this particular strain was designed by a lab.

It's completely harmless.

Hands out. All our participants

Will be immersing their hands in this stuff,

And it'll create a consistent bacterial load

For all our testing.

It's all hands to the pump...

Now flip them.

...As jamie applies the same amount in the same way

To get the same bacterial load. Excellent.

And with that, the mother of all washing wipeouts can begin.

All right. First person, please.

Volunteer one steps up to get swabbed...

Thank you.

...Then washed...

One 1,000, two 1,000, three 1,000.

...Then swabbed again.

Left hand again, if you would, sir.

Next, he heads for some towel traction...

...Which is followed by one last swab.

Science.

Next.

And so, the pattern repeats...

Thank you very much.

...As all 16 volunteers

Get sampled before washing...

Excellent.

...After washing... Thank you.

...And after towel drying. Excellent.

Thank you. Thank you.

To say it's a little repetitive is an understatement.

Thank you. Excellent. Thank you.

But to really see a pathogen pattern,

A solid sample is essential.

48 pieces of data down.

Nice work. Thank you.

With 48 swabs, the guys are exactly halfway through.

So it's onwards and upwards.

Here we go again.

With the bacteria load reloaded...

...The entire swab mob hits the washroom once more.

Very strange.

Our test-subject group seems to have developed its own ritual.

Like last time... Next.

...The volunteers swab, wash, and swab

Before this time turning blue with the hand dryer.

But will this different drying device

Really let microbes make hay?

Number 16. There it is.

Well, with the final test finally done,

The guys have a hunch.

You know, I am noticing something sort of interesting.

I'm wondering if it's the same thing

That I've been noticing.

Well, I'm smelling the odor of the growth medium

A lot more now

Because the air dryer is aerosolizing the stuff, I think.

And I didn't smell it before with the paper towels.

I'll tell you what I've been noticing.

I noticed a lot more wet hands.

See, it takes longer to dry your hands with the air dryer,

But people aren't taking that extra time.

Thus, they're coming back here,

And their hands are wetter than with the towels.

Both the smell and the clammy hands

Suggest that the dryer is not eliminating pathogens

From people's palms.

But what does the data say?

Here it is -- all of our data gathered from 16 test subjects

On both the air dryer and the paper towels --

96 pieces of data in all --

And this isn't everything that we're gathering today.

Because we're not just concerned

About spreading bacteria on people's hands.

We're also gonna test the immediate environment

Around where they dry them to see what, if any,

Bacterial spread there is there, as well.

So, adam gets down and dirty

With one final swabbing sequence...

I bet there's a lot right here.

...As he collects 10 samples

From identical points in each bathroom.

Well, let's get these back to the shop

And start growing some bacteria.

I've got my incubator warm and ready to go.

That sounded creepy. Let's go.

24 hours later,

With bacteria sprouting like there's no tomorrow...

Agh! There's a lot.

...The guys count every colony...

...59, 60, 61. Blam.

...In every sample...

Here we go.

...Before they're finally ready...

To wrap up the results.

All right. The great hand towel versus air dryer debate --

The results are in. Are you ready to hear them?

Sure. Pretty stunning.

When we had our test subjects dry their hands

With the air dryer,

They were able to reduce the bacterial load

On their hands by 23%.

But when we had the individuals dry their hands

With the hand towel,

They were able to reduce the bacterial load

On their hands

By

71% -- almost three times as much.

That's amazing, but that's for the individual.

What about for the environment?

Well, when we swabbed the area around the air dryer,

We found a total of 41 colonies of bacteria.

When we swabbed the area around the hand towel,

We found three.

Which, yet again, indicates that the air dryer

Is spreading more bacteria than the hand towels.

Indeed they do. This myth is totally confirmed.

The claims of the air dryers just don't hold up.

It's just hot air.

Hah.

When an earthquake quivers,

Are you better off decamping in the doorway?

The small scale is done.

Now it is time to move on to the full-scale shake table.

Now, the construction of this is gonna be a bit of a challenge.

Doing good. Looking good.

The dimensions will be 11x13 feet,

But we're gonna be using square steel tube

With 1/2-inch-thick wall.

I think we're good. Yow!

This stuff is strong.

It has to be strong

Because once we start building buildings on top of it

And shaking them down,

This thing has to withstand thousands of pounds of force.

Their steel is clearly the real deal.

There's about 5,000 pounds of steel here,

And according to my back that's a lot.

And once the top side's welded tight...

Cue the forklift fox-trot.

With the frame finally flipped out,

The guys make short work of a long job.

And yet still, the build has barely just begun.

did you hear that?

That's an earthquake coming.

We've now completed the heavy-duty steel structure,

Which is going to be the base of our shake table.

Now we need to build what shakes it.

For that, we're building eight monuments.

These are pneumatic springs or air springs.

Usually, they're used in semitruck trailer beds

So that it can balance loads or provide some extra spring.

For us, they're going to be on the edges of our shake table,

And they're going to provide 10,000 pounds of force each.

With eight of them, that's 80,000 pounds.

That ought to shake things up.

Now this one's finished. We only got seven more to go.

These no-nonsense pneumatics

Will help shake the quake back and forth.

And once they're secured into place...

...And attached to the frame...

♪ oh, susanna don't you cry for me ♪

...The guys have one more trick up their sleeves.

Oh! These are the air castors.

This is the most exciting part.

Remember the shake table at the museum.

Their shake table was able to move on an "x"/"y" plane.

Ours is gonna be even better.

Our is gonna be able to move on a "z" plane, as well.

How? With these.

These are aerogo air castors,

And they're able to lift 8,000 pounds each.

Now, we're gonna have six of them --

Four in each corner and two in the middle.

These are gonna allow our shake table

To not only move side to side, forwards and backwards,

But also up and down.

So, let's face it.

If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

Indeed, and the one thing that still needs overdoing...

I got to show them who's boss.

...Is to put in place the plumbing.

it's pretty manly work!

I'm putting the "man" into "manifold."

By nightfall, it's finally ready for a test.

After hours of designing and days of heavy building,

The earthquake table is finally done.

Now, behind me is a fleet of air compressors.

Now, it's important that we have a lot of air

For this table to work, and I'll show you why.

Now, compressed air will be moving through these hoses

Into this manifold,

Where it will be distributed to six separate air castors.

Now, once those air castors inflate,

The whole table will lift up,

And it will actually ride on a cushion of air.

Our second source of air

Is going to come through these hoses,

Through these pipes, and to these air bladders.

They're gonna control the shakin'

So the table starts a-quakin'.

All the valves that control the air bladders

Are going to this bank of relays,

Which is going to this microcontroller

And this computer.

We can control each of those valves separately

So that we can get exactly the magnitude of earthquake

That we need.

Want to see it?

Fire up the compressors!

It's time we put this sucker to work.

With the air on, the guys are gonna kick off...

Charging the air castors.

...With the up/down test.

Here we go -- in three, two, one...

it's working!

First impressions are good.

Second impressions...

It's like an earthquake!

...Are even better.

it's working!

Dude, all right. So, that's the up and down.

all right. Let's see what the side to side can do.

Okay. You guys ready? Do it!

Three, two, one!

We got an earthquake going on!

It's a 6.0 on the awesome scale!

Ain't that the truth?

With the air castors controlling the up and down

And the pneumatic cylinders pumping iron back and forth,

The biggest build in "mythbusters" history

Is ready to rock.

This is an amazing success!

Now, all we need to do is build a house.

And then see if we can shake it down.

This is awesome.

Coming up next on "mythbusters"...

Find out what it's gonna take to shake the house down!

Okay! Enough!

And adam and jamie cut the crap.

Oh, man. Someone here didn't flush.

That's gross.

There's no restroom respite

Because next up,

Is it all for one and one for all?

Next up in toilet trouble,

We have a myth that in a bathroom --

A public restroom of multiple stalls --

The stall closest to the door is going to be the cleanest

And also least-used stall.

Why would that be the case?

I personally avoid that stall

Because I'm assuming everyone else has jumped in it

And it's probably filthy.

Well, I'd imagine some people also want more privacy,

So they'd go to the other end of the bathroom.

In either case, the myth is the same --

People for whatever reason

Are avoiding the stall closest to the door,

And thus it unexpectedly is a bastion of cleanliness

In a public restroom.

Well, I guess it's time to get down and dirty.

Nice pun.

Restroom routines waver widely.

But is it true that we all tend to steer clear of stall one,

Making it the freshest faucet of all?

I'm gonna go out on a limb

And say I think the plan here is pretty straightforward.

Can you guess what I'm thinking?

Find a public restroom, stake it out,

Count how many people use what stalls.

Yes, but we'd also use

Some of our bacteriological testing knowledge

To measure how dirty each of the stalls is

At the end of our test.

Sure, why not? How hard could that be?

Over the years we've been doing "mythbusters,"

We've been granted access to props and locations

To do our experiments

That, well, when we first started

Would've seemed completely impossible.

We got a 747

That we were allowed to get behind

And test the power of hurricane-force winds.

Yeah!

We were even allowed to sink a boat

In the protected wildlife sanctuary

Of monterey bay

And then to raise it back up again

With 30,000 ping-pong balls.

Yeah!

But finding a public restroom

With four stalls

That we could film and test in

Has proven to be one of the biggest bears

We've ever had to tackle.

Luckily, we believe we've found the bathroom,

And it's here at the cal maritime academy.

Not only is it one of the best maritime academies

In the country

But they've got a bathroom

That they're willing to let us film in,

And I think it's gonna be perfect.

It's not often a public bathroom

Can be perfect,

But for this stall tall tale,

This restroom rules.

Now, please bear with us.

There's only so many interesting ways

You can film a restroom,

But the basic myth is this --

That in a public restroom, stall number one --

That is the one closest to the door --

Is both the cleanest and the least used

Because of two assumptions people make

About human behavior.

The first is that people assume

Because of its proximity to the door,

The first stall is the most used and therefore the dirtiest,

And therefore they pick another stall.

The second assumption people make

Is that people will avoid the first stall

And go all the way to the end

Because they want privacy -- auditory privacy.

Either way, the net result is the same.

Is the first stall the least used and therefore the cleanest?

That's what we're gonna test.

And to do just that,

The guys need two dollops of data

That they'll collect over four days...

...Bathroom bacterial and u-bend usage.

A mechanical door clicker

Is a simple solution for logging toilet traffic.

Perfect.

And with all four installed on the stalls,

Next, it's time to cut the crap...

I win!

...As adam and jamie,

Along with some mean cleaners,

Give the bathroom a bacteria blitz.

For us to record the amount of bacteria in each stall,

We need to start with a clean slate.

That's what all this cleaning's about --

Eliminating traces of bacteria

So any colonies we find at the end of the experiment

Have all grown during the test and not before.

That's the theory,

And once the restroom is a pathogen-free zone,

The experiment can begin.

That's it. All the counters are zeroed.

Well, everything's been swabbed. Let's get out of here.

So, let the crapping commence.

Okay. So, by now, you know that we are testing the myth

That standing in the doorway is the best place to be

During an earthquake.

Now, we learned from the california academy of sciences

That the origin of this myth

Is possibly in unreinforced masonry buildings.

Now, it's a common type of building around the world,

As well as in historical buildings in the United States.

So, we found ourselves some skilled masons.

They're going to build a structure on our shake table,

And once it's cured,

We're gonna try to shake it down.

Yep. For test one,

The mythbusters don't need to be movers or shakers.

Between the lines.

Because this house

Is being time-lapsed into place by experts.

And once the concrete's left to cure for three whole weeks...

...It's time to decorate.

voilà.

Wow. I really like what you did with the place, grant.

You really made this a home.

For the subsequent shakedown,

It's important that the inside is as realistic as the outside,

And that means furniture, knickknacks -- and mannequins?

I'm placing three mannequins around the room --

One underneath the table,

One just standing in the room,

And one standing in the doorway.

Now, for this myth to be confirmed, the

One in the doorway is gonna fare the best

In the quake,

And to assess relative damage,

We have an accelerometer in the head.

And I'm placing shock watches around their bodies.

Very muscular -- rock-hard abs.

So, I'm no mason,

But I did observe how this building was being built,

And it conforms to how you would've built something

In pre-code olden days,

Which means that there are strong points and weak points.

Now, these corners

Are one of the strongest parts of the building.

There's rebar going all the way up to the ceiling

With poured concrete.

Same thing for the door all the way around the arch.

That's all solid.

So, by the end of this, my personal opinion

Is that the only thing left standing is gonna be this wall

With the front door.

So, grant's money is on the myth,

But before the earth moves...

Excuse me.

...There's one final piece of the puzzle...

...Some u.S. Geological survey sensors

That will record the magnitude of their tremor.

All right. We are set to shake the building down!

Okay. Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One!

whoa.

Wow!

The chandelier is going crazy.

Wow!

That is a lot of power.

Right from the get-go,

Their quake is quivering up, down, left, and right

With the same power as san francisco's 1906 shock.

And yet this olden days-style building is holding firm.

But not for long.

Above the window. Above the window!

Window's coming out!

Oh, crap!

Oh, look at that!

After just 15 seconds,

The side wall is already in pieces,

And mannequin one is also down for the count.

Oh, my god!

Look, the back wall's going!

That is terrifying!

Moments later, the back wall...

And then the other side wall follow suit.

Oh! Whoa!

This is terrifying!

I think it's gonna go.

It's quake carnage everywhere,

Except, incredibly, for the doorway.

All right, so far, though, the doorway does seem to be

The safest place to stand.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, given all your other choices

In this situation, I think the doorway's got it.

Even after a longer-than-typical two minutes of quake and shake,

The doorway still holds firm.

Until...

Kill the air! Kill the air!

...The machine itself gives out.

And with that, the conclusions are quick to follow.

Well, I think it's pretty clear.

I mean, the only wall still standing

Is the one with the door,

And the only mannequin that didn't sustain any injury

Is the one standing in the doorway.

Yeah. He looks all right

Other than being whacked by the door a few times.

I mean, I think we can call this one plausible

For this kind of construction.

Yeah. It's totally plausible.

So, this is a pretty fantastic result.

As I expected, this front wall with the doorway

Stayed intact.

Everybody inside the house -- totally devastated.

Guy in the doorway -- totally fine.

But there are two caveats.

The first one is that this is only good

For a certain amount of time.

If your earthquake lasts for several minutes,

That wall's gonna come down, too.

The second thing --

There aren't many buildings built like this these days.

Most of them have modern seismic codes in mind.

In fact, you watching at home,

You're probably in a modern building.

So that's what we got to do next -- build a modern building.

Earthquakes make the earth move.

So do weddings.

But what happens when those two worlds collide?

Well, in a magnitude 8.5, this marriage is going...

- Ahh! Ahh! - ...Going...

Oh! ...Gone.

Pretty good.

The things that you see on this show are very dangerous!

Please don't try them at home!

We have experts to keep us safe!

Welcome back.

"mythbusters" has been attempting to answer

The age-old conundrum of which bathroom stall

In a public restroom is the cleanest...

...Which is the dirtiest...

And which gets the most use?

In order to test this,

We have commandeered the bathroom behind me

By cleaning it within an inch of its life,

Adding clicker counters on each of the four stall doors,

And we plan to come back in a few days

To test how much bacteria

Built up over the time the public was using it.

But now it's time for people to come in

And just start using it like they normally would.

So...

Come on, public!

Time to use the bathroom.

Although the toilet is now open for business,

The users are a little reticent, but they needn't worry.

Now, normally, we'd have a whole bunch of cameras everywhere

To record the process of our experiment.

But, well, in this particular case,

It might not be such a good idea.

And, anyway, why would you want to watch what happens in here?

I certainly wouldn't.

Me, either.

So let's stick with some cryptic close-ups...

A time-lapse montage...

And some inappropriate interviews?

Here comes another member of the public.

Howdy. Uh, what's your name?

My name's brad.

Brad, uh, mind if I ask you a personal question?

Uh, sure. Why not?

Okay, uh, did you use one of the stalls in there

When you went in?

I did.

Okay. Which one did you use?

Which one are you normally inclined to use?

Number two. Number two.

The second one. Yes, sir.

All right. Thank you very much, sir.

No problem. Have a nice day.

Number two.

So, it's one point to stall two,

And there's more to come.

Did you, in fact, use one of the stalls in there?

Uh, yeah.

Okay. Which one did you use?

I like the one in the back, the corner one.

In fact, throughout day one, nobody used stall one at all.

I choose the third one.

Uh, the fourth one -- the big one.

Number three.

I used the one far on the left as you walk in.

We are taking a break

From our regularly scheduled programming

In the men's room

To visit the ladies' room,

Where we discovered to our astonishment

Not one or two but three freakin' couches in this joint.

Now I know why they always go to the bathroom together.

And why they take so long.

You can write to us about this sexist talk later,

But first, I'm actually kind of interested in the interviews

We did outside the restroom.

Yeah. It was a little creepy,

But they all seemed to value their privacy

More than anything else.

Yeah, and seek out the farthest stall from the door like I do.

Me, I don't care.

You're all just like

"hear me!"

Day two at the gents

And business is booming

As this myth gets flushed out over 96 hours,

Which, with one final farewell, come to a sticky end.

Well, are you ready?

I am. It's been four days.

Let's reswab this joint.

Remember, there's two bits of data they need to collect.

Oh, man. Someone here didn't flush.

That's gross.

First is the bacterial load of each stall.

this is nasty!

And second is the door-clicker data,

Which is much easier on the eye.

What'd you get?

Well, I can tell you, but I can't tell them.

They're gonna have to wait till we get back to the shop.

See, even if I turned it around and showed it to you,

It would still be blurred.

That's right. It's television.

Let's go.

Well, it's been three days

Since we started our toilet experiment.

What do we got?

Wow, nice graphics.

We actually got some great numbers.

Nobody messed with our counters,

And starting with the stall farthest from the door --

Stall number four --

We had a total of 24 users.

Stall number three -- 34 users.

There's a few more for stall number two at 38,

But stall number one had a total of 23 users.

Well, that's the least number of uses.

How does that correlate with the bacterial count?

Here is where it actually gets really interesting.

We counted the number of colonies from all of our swabs.

Starting again at number four, the number was 231.

Moving in closer, a little more -- 290.

267.

Stall number one -- 162.

It's not only the least used

But it is by far the cleanest of all four stalls.

Wow. That's definitive.

Yeah, this one is completely confirmed.

Well, it looks like in the future,

I'll be using stall number one.

I'm still gonna stick with stall number four.

In earthquake emergencies...

Oh, my god!

...The door just scored. Aah!

So, as spectacular as that result was,

Does it mean that diving for the doorway

Is the best thing to do?

Well, not necessarily.

You see, simply, houses just aren't built this way

In the u.S. Anymore.

I mean, they used to be,

Which may be where the myth came from,

But with modern building codes,

Is the doorway still the best place to be?

Time to build something a little more up-to-date.

So, this is our wood-frame house,

Built to modern building codes.

It's got studs every 16 inches.

It's lagged into the floor.

The roof tresses have hurricane ties.

Now, one reason why a wood-frame house

Might fare better than a masonry house is,

When a brick wall flexes,

The mortar simply pops out,

And the wall crumbles and fails.

With a wood-frame house, it can flex equally in both directions,

So it can absorb some of that energy

And probably fare better.

Now, the door might be the strongest part

Of a masonry house,

But my money is on the wood-frame house

Being equally strong all around.

That's the theory, and once the roof and walls are up...

...That just leaves the finishing touches...

Hi, everybody!

Welcome to our house!

...The windows...

...And the all-important door.

Good night!

Next comes the furniture.

Ooh, be careful with that.

It's been in the family for years.

Then in go the usgs sensors...

Whose owner is adamant that this myth is at fault.

Okay, dave. So, what do you think about the myth

That the doorway is the safest place to stand in an earthquake?

I wouldn't do it.

The usgs advocates that you drop, cover, and hold on,

Which means drop under a sturdy table or desk

And hold onto it

So that you don't separate from the table.

This is an 8.0-magnitude earthquake

With a wooden-frame, to-code house.

Start the sequence!

Three...

Two...

One...

Immediately, the table roars into life.

Look -- look at the chandelier!

The chandelier is swinging around the room!

And it's not long before the bookcase

Takes out mannequin one.

Oh, my god. Everything is falling over!

While the inside may be imploding...

The guy under the table is injury-free,

Which cannot be said of the doorman.

That dude got spanked!

Yeah, the door just smacked him on the butt!

A full two minutes of spanking later,

And the house stays standing strong.

The construction's way too good!

So, the guys decide to come up for air.

Okay. Shut it down! Shut it down!

So, we shook our house at an 8.0,

And you can see it's still standing.

It's built to modern building codes,

Which have seismic concerns in mind.

Now, inside of the house, it's a different story.

There's stuff everywhere,

But the important thing is that the guy under the table

Did just as well

As the guy standing in the doorway

And in some ways, actually better.

See, the table provided shielding,

Whereas the guy in the doorway --

He got smacked several times

With the door as it swung around.

But we're not done yet.

We're gonna shake it one more time.

So, unlike the masonry house,

This modern marvel is made of sterner stuff,

Which means the duck, cover, and hold technique

Is so far the safest.

But what will happen

When they crank the machine to the max?

This is quake-zilla with a to-code, wooden-structure house!

Three...Two...One!

With the air pressure firing on all cylinders,

The earthquake hits a 9.5,

Making it the strongest quake ever recorded.

What the heck's going on?!

Yet the house still stands,

Which is more than can be said for the doorman.

Whoa!

Whoa!

Unable to maintain stability,

He's hit the deck and is out for the count.

That's not good!

Which means the only merry mannequin

Is the crouching tiger.

I can't believe this!

But perhaps the biggest surprise

Is that the built-to-code building

Appears to be unbreakable.

So, as you can see,

The modern building codes are that way for a reason.

This house, which we built in a day and a half,

Stood up to a 9.5 earthquake --

Enough to bring down an unreinforced masonry house.

It's a feat of engineering for sure.

But with two different results for their two different houses,

The guys head home for the wrap-up.

Okay, so, how are we gonna call this one?

Well, given that the myth is that diving for the doorway

Is the best thing to do in all cases,

I think we're gonna have to call this one busted

'cause that's not always the case.

Exactly.

I mean, maybe if you're in

An old, unreinforced masonry building,

Which are very rare in the United States,

Getting to the doorway is a good idea.

But a better idea is getting out of the building altogether.

Exactly.

And as far as modern buildings built to code,

They're probably not gonna collapse anyway.

Which means the current advice

Of drop, cover, and hold on is your best bet.

That's what I'll be doing.