Forward Ever Forward

All of those wasted oreos could have been avoided. If I just had this information sooner!

Five-second rule for dropped food? Try 30

CTV.ca News Staff

Updated: Tue. Jun. 12 2007 10:16 PM ET

A man drops a brownie on the floor. If he picks it up within five seconds, should he still eat it? Two U.S. students claim the answer is yes.

In fact, they say he could wait half a minute.

The students, who are seniors at Connecticut College, studied the five-second rule as part of their microbiology class.

“It is an eye-opener,” student Molly Goettsche told ABC News. “There may be a little more time than just seconds.”

First they dropped Skittles candy and apple slices on the school’s dining hall floor for different lengths of time.

Then they swabbed the food for samples and checked for any bacteria.

Their conclusions may be a relief to those who rescue fallen food: it took more than 30 seconds for bacteria to cultivate on the apple slices, which represented wet food.

As for the Skittles, which stood in for dry food, it took longer than a minute.

But despite their findings, the students said they would never eat anything that’s hit the ground.

“I don’t know if I would ever eat off that floor,” said Goettsche.

High school student Jillian Clarke conducted a more exhaustive study in 2003, and her research earned her an Ig Noble award — a parody of the Nobel Prize — the following year.

She traced the five-second rule to Genghis Khan. But the Mongol leader, known more for his military tactics than passion for science, thought food could be left on the floor for half a day.

Like the Connecticut College students, Clarke found that dry food dropped on clean floors did not pick up a noticeable amount of bacteria.

However, when she dropped food on floors contaminated with E. coli, the bacteria latched onto the food in less than five seconds.

Two jailed after bridge built by blind man collapses
Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:41 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese court has jailed two officials after they let a blind contractor build a bridge which collapsed during construction and injured 12 people, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday.

Huang Wenge, township head of Bujia in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, and colleague Xia Jianzhong were sentenced to 18 months and one year in jail, respectively, for not stopping the project, Xinhua said.

“Huang Wenge and Xia Jianzhong, who were in charge of road management and supervision, did not ask the contractors to provide certificates guaranteeing their proficiency,” it said, citing the court ruling.

“When they knew the bridge was being built by a blind contractor, they did not stop it,” it said, adding the contractor had changed the blueprint without getting a professional to look at the design.

“After the blind contractor changed the blueprint, he carried out the work only using a roughly drawn draft of the plan, which caused the bridge to collapse,” the report said.

Xinhua did not explain how the contractor was able to run the project considering his inability to see.

German vandal, 70, nabbed spraying rude graffiti

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German pensioner has been arrested for vandalism after being caught spraying the word “Puff” (whorehouse) on houses in the Bavarian town of Hof, near the Czech border, a police spokeswoman said on Monday.

The 70-year-old had sprayed at least two houses with graffiti when a young man saw him in action with his spray can and challenged him, the spokeswoman said.

The elderly vandal dropped the can and ran, but the younger man caught up with him and held him down until police arrived. The spokeswoman said the houses he had sprayed were just people’s homes and his motive was unclear.

A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband.
Suddenly, her husband burst into the kitchen.
“Careful,” he said, “CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my!
You’re cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW!
We need more butter. Oh my! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER?
They’re going to STICK!
Careful . CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when
you’re cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you
LOST your mind? Don’t forget to salt them. You know you always
forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!”
The wife stared at him. “What in the world is wrong with you? You
think I don’t know how to fry a couple of eggs?”
The husband calmly replied, “I just wanted to show you what it feels
like when I’m driving.”

Indian lawyers tie man to tree, beat him
Thu May 31, 2007 2:32 PM ET

LUCKNOW (Reuters) – Lawyers tied a young man to a tree and beat him outside a court in India for refusing to marry one of their relatives, an official said on Wednesday.

They rounded on the victim when he arrived at a court in the Taj Mahal town of Agra to settle a dispute over marrying the niece of one of the lawyers.

Indian TV channels showed the abusive lawyers tearing off the man’s shirt, tying him to a tree trunk and cutting bald patches into his hair. The 22-year-old victim was then beaten up.

Local official K. Chandramauli said he ordered police to file a case against the lawyers. The Agra Bar Association said it was investigating the attack.