The handshake has been the preferred gesture of greeting, parting, congratulating, thanking, and sealing a deal in many cultures for some time now, but, in the interest of health, it may be time to loosen our grip on the handshake and take up "pounding it" or high-fiving instead. Shaking hands transfers 10 times more bacteria than fist bumping, while high-fiving falls somewhere between the two on the bacterial transfer spectrum. Still, none of these options is completely sterile, prompting one infection control expert to make the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that we reinstate bowing and curtsying, thereby eliminating hand contact entirely.
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