Science has concluded what 6 year old boys have known all along.
Women have more diverse hand bacteria than men
"A new University of Colorado at Boulder study indicates that not
only do human hands harbor far higher numbers of bacteria species
than previously believed, women have a significantly greater
diversity of microbes on their palms than men."
Cooties don't wash off, which goes against the 6 year old boy
conventional wisdom:
"Although hand washing altered community composition, overall levels
of bacterial diversity were unrelated to the time since the last hand
washing," wrote the researchers in PNAS. "Either the bacterial
colonies rapidly re-establish after hand washing, or washing (as
practiced by the students included in this study) does not remove the
majority of bacteria taxa found on the skin surface."
