Germs apparently are everywhere and they're invisible.

Let's be honest, if they're big enough

where you can see them, they're extra disgusting.

I'm talking to you, gas station bathrooms.

Well now, one of the smartest things

that is often covered with cooties can light up

and get a nice little bath in the process.

Here's Adam Yamaguchi to explain.

- We're instinctively aware where germs thrive.

Kitchen counters, airplanes, doctor's offices.

What about your smartphone?

- When people learn that phones are really, you know,

18 times dirtier than a public restroom.

It's really shocking to people 'cause they interact

with phones so often, and it's just a matter

of like stopping and thinking about their habits.

Do they realize that, yeah, I can see why my phone

is this disgusting.

- This life sciences college major

was so disturbed by how filthy his own phone was,

he set out to invent a device to clean it,

leaning on the magical properties of ultraviolet light

to do the work.

- UV lights have been used for, you know,

decades in hospitals and laboratories

to disinfect surfaces.

Think of it as like a tanning bed for your phone.

It opens up, you place your phone inside

and when you close it back up,

the ultraviolet lights turn on and kills all the bacteria

in just a matter of minutes.

- I headed to Provo, Utah, to meet

Wesley Laporte and learn more about scrubbing germy gadgets

with his innovation, called Phonesoap.

- Most of the development work happens

on the shape of the inside.

We place light sources in different areas

and test the concavity of the shell to make sure

that light's bouncing around all in there,

and then we build in the reflectivity into the device.

And this right here is actually a piece of quartz

because the wavelength of UV light that kills germs

actually doesn't pass through plastic or glass even,

it only passes through quartz.

It allows us to reflect light all around the phone.

- When UV light penetrates the bacteria's

cell wall, it kills its DNA,

preventing it from reproducing and reducing the chances

of you getting infected.

Wesley took me to his alma mater, BYU,

to lab test my phone using Phonesoap.

- We're gonna swab your phone before using Phonesoap,

and we're gonna put that swab onto this plate,

and it's gonna help grow the bacteria.

Then after we've swabbed it,

we're gonna put it in the Phonesoap for 10 minutes,

and we're gonna take it out and do the same thing again,

and we'll compare how many germs are there before

versus how many germs are there after.

- Wesley swabbed my phone and labeled the before

petri dish B.

Then after we cleaned my phone for 10 minutes in Phonesoap,

he swabbed it and then labeled the after dish A.

- Now we're gonna put these plates,

the before and the after, in this incubator,

and we're gonna leave it for 24 hours,

and we're gonna come back and see what grew or didn't grow.

- I'm afraid to know.

- Here's your phone back in the meantime.

- (laughs) Thank you.

After waiting 24 hours,

I came back to the lab to learn

the results.

- Moment of truth.

Okay, this is the before petri dish.

This is what you phone like was before Phonesoap.

Oh, my goodness.

- Oh, it smells, too.

- Yeah, the stuff growing on our phone is--

- Wow.

- is wild.

And this is the after petri dish.

- Wow.

- Yeah, nothing grew.

- Hmm.

- Much different.

- Well, I go home with a very clean phone.

- Yes.

- I think you've invented the new form

of like, shaming.