Few objects get more acquainted with your insides than your toothbrush.
A microbiology project he did in college unveiled to Jim Song, inventor of the Germ Terminator, just how germ-coated a toothbrush can get.
"There were so many of them," Song said. "After 48 hours, the smell was so bad. There were well over 500 species of bacteria."
That research led to Song's invention of a toothbrush sterilization device. Essentially a mini-autoclave for the toothbrush, the Germ Terminator uses steam and dry heat to kill germs that breed on the bristles.
The Germ Terminator also "makes the bristles [of the toothbrush] nice and soft," Song claimed, so that they won't puncture the gumline.
But after considering the Germ Terminator apparatus, Fishman was perplexed.
"This one befuddled me," Fishman said. "Mouths are filled with bacteria -- some of them are good bacteria and some of them are bad bacteria. Usually, we don't worry about bacteria in the mouth because they don't spread anywhere."
Fishman added that the acid in our stomachs generally kills a lot of the bad bacteria that traverses through our bodies.
Song, though, said he believes it's important to be educated about what we put into our mouths with our toothbrushes.
"We are our own dentists every single time we brush," he noted.
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