The Five Second Rule

Most of us have heard of the Five Second Rule: if you drop food on the floor and pick it up in less than five seconds, it's OK to eat. Well, maybe not, according to high schooler Jillian Clarke, working at the University of Illinois.

The next step was sterilizing the tiles and inoculating them with E. coli, then placing 25 grams of cookies or gummies on the tiles for 5 seconds. In all cases, E. coli was transferred from the tile to the food, demonstrating that microorganisms can be transferred from ceramic tile to food in 5 seconds or less. More E. coli were transferred to gummy bears from smooth tiles than from rough tiles.

Science marches on.

[Thanks to Fark for the link.]