Bad news for fans of the so-called “five-second rule” that claims that food that falls on the floor is safe if picked up and eaten quickly: it’s completely false, as demonstrated by researchers from Rutgers University in a newly-published Applied and Environmental Microbiology study.

Proponents of the five-second rule claim that a piece of food that falls onto the floor is safe for consumption as long as it is retrieved quickly because bacteria requires a certain amount of time to transfer onto its surface. However, food scientist Donald Schaffner and his colleagues debunk that myth in their new study, showing that the transfer takes place almost immediately.

“The popular notion of the ‘five-second rule,’” Schaffner explained in a statement, “is that food dropped on the floor, but picked up quickly, is safe to eat because bacteria need time to transfer.” The truth, however, is that moisture, surface type and contact time all contribute to contamination levels and that in some cases, bacterial transfer can begin in less than one second, he noted.

“The five-second rule is a significant oversimplification of what actually happens when bacteria transfer from a surface to food,” he said. “Bacteria can contaminate instantaneously.”

Floor surface and food type, not just time, play a key role in transfer

While the five-second rule has been previously tackled by the science-themed television show Mythbusters and has also been the topic of some small-scale studies, Schaffner pointed out that there had been a limited analysis of the subject published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

“We decided to look into this because the practice is so widespread,” he said. “The topic might appear ‘light’ but we wanted our results backed by solid science.” To that end, he teamed up with Robyn Miranda, a graduate student in his laboratory at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, to put the five-second rule to the test.

The scientists tested four different surfaces (stainless steel, ceramic tile, wood, and carpet) as well as four different foods (watermelon, bread, bread and butter, and gummy candy) and four contact times (less than one second, five, 30 and 300 seconds). Furthermore, they used one of two media (tryptic soy broth or peptone buffer) to grow the bacteria Enterobacter aerogenes, a strain which occurs naturally in the human digestive system and is related to Salmonella.

They conducted a total of 128 different test scenarios, each of which were reproduced 20 times, and analyzed both the surface and the food samples for bacterial contamination. They found that watermelon was typically the most contaminated food and gummy candy the least, while transfer appeared to be most affected by moisture, which made it easier for the bacteria to move.

“Also, longer food contact times usually result in the transfer of more bacteria from each surface to food,” Schaffner said, adding that carpet had significantly lower transfer rates than either tile or stainless steel surfaces. While longer contact time did result in greater bacterial transfer, “the topography of the surface and food seem to play an important role in bacterial transfer.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock

While the only tangible evidence we have of Scotland’s famed Loch Ness Monster is a few grainy photographs, a real-life sea Scottish sea monster is has been unveiled to the public by National Museums Scotland.

Living around 170 million years ago, an ancient Scottish ichthyosaur nicknamed the Storr Lochs Monster has finally been debuted to the public after being encased in rock for around 50 years. Paleontologists hadn’t been able to release the specimen until recently-developed techniques allowed them to do so.

“For half a century the museum kept the fossil safe and secure, but there wasn’t the expertise to free it from the very dense rock that surrounded it, or the expertise to study it,” Steve Brusatte, a researcher from of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geoscience told the Agence-France Presse. “But now we finally have that expertise… and have realized that this skeleton is the most complete fossil of a sea reptile ever found in Scotland.”

Science Uncovering an Old Find

The marine reptile, which lacks a formal scientific designation yet, was found in 1966 by on the Isle of Skye. The specimen was carved out and carried back to the National Museums Scotland.

Official study of the fossil is only just commencing, but a few things are clear. The animal was an ichthyosaur measuring approximately 13 feet long and it lived in the Middle Jurassic, a relatively unknown period for palentologists. The conventional notion of what the Jurassic was comes from the Late Jurassic, when dinosaurs like Stegosaurus ruled the land and ichthyosaurs ruled the seas. The Storr Lochs Monster could provide more information about the Jurassic, incorporating more detail we can only picture through the bones of the creatures that once lived there.

According to Brusatte, these ancient, but real-life creatures are much more impressive than any fictional Scottish counterpart.

“People don’t realize that real sea monsters used to exist,” he said. “They were bigger, scarier, and more fascinating than the myth of Nessie. The new fossil is one of them. It actually lived in Scotland 170 million years ago!”

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Image credit: Univeristy of Edinborough 

A panel established to determine whether or not Earth had entered a new epoch known as the Anthropocene or the “Age of Humans” has recommended that the new time segment officially be recognized during a recent geology conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

Speaking at the 35th International Geological Congress (IGC) earlier this week, representatives from the UK-led Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA) delivered preliminary evidence which they said supports the notion that humanity’s influence on the planet has been significant enough to warrant entering a new geological age characterized by our activities.

“We’ve got to a point where we’ve listed what we think the Anthropocene means to us as a working group,” AWG secretary Colin Waters, who presented the findings, told BBC News. “The majority of us think it is real; that there is clearly something happening; that there are clearly signals in the environment that are recognizable and make the Anthropocene a distinct unit; and the majority of us think it would be justified to formally recognize it.”

Furthermore, as University of Wollongong geography professor Noel Castree explained in an article written for Live Science and The Conversation, the group believes that the new epoch began in the 1950s, when the first nuclear bomb tests were conducted, disposable plastics were invented and the human population boom started. The goal now, BBC News said, is to find the “golden spike(s)” that scientists can use to signal the dawning of the new age.

‘Not a decision that is taken lightly’

Ten out of the 35 members of the working group believe that the best marker will be plutonium fallout that resulted from 1950s bomb tests and which was left behind in marine sediments, ice layers and possibly even stalagmites and stalactites, the British news agency said. Others believe that leftover plastics or carbon signatures would be more significant spikes.

While AWG members disagree on exactly what should serve as the marker, 28 of them believe that it should reflect events that took place during the so-called “great acceleration,” the time in which human influence began to spread and become more intense during the 1950s. The group expects to spend as much as three years determining which factor was the most critical.

Castree called the group’s declaration that we have likely entered the Age of Humans “literally epoch-defining news,” emphasizing in his article that “if the Holocene has now truly given way to the Anthropocene, it’s because a single species – us – has significantly altered the character of the entire hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere.”

“Making this call is not straightforward,” Castree said, “because the Anthropocene proposition is being investigated in different areas of science, using different methods and criteria for assessing the evidence.” Scientists have “amassed considerable evidence about changes to everything from nutrient cycles to ocean acidity to levels of biodiversity across the planet,” he continued.

“Comparing these changes to those occurring during the Holocene, they concluded that we humans have made an indelible mark on our one and only home,” he added. “We have altered the Earth system qualitatively, in ways that call into question our very survival over the coming few centuries… It’s not a decision that is taken lightly.”

So what does this all mean, and what happens now?

Once members of the AWG reach a consensus on  their “golden spike(s),” they will the set to work on a final assessment, and once completed, that report will be reviewed by members of the international geological community, noted BBC News. For it to be added to the planet’s official timeline, the Chronostratigraphic Chart, it will first have to be ratified by the International Union of Geological Sciences’ (IUGS) executive committee.

Before that can happen, Waters and his colleagues will have to either recruit scientists who have obtained cores of ocean sediment, coral specimens, stalactites and stalagmites to analyze as part of their ongoing investigation. Should they be unable to do so, they will then need to obtain such samples on their own – an expensive process that could delay the group’s final report.

Why the declaration of the Anthropocene epoch so important? As Castree explained, it would allow researchers “to assemble a set of large-scale human impacts under one graphic conceptual banner. Its scientific status therefore matters a great deal if people worldwide are at long last to wake up to the environmental effects of their collective actions.”

“Even more than the concept of global warming,” he added, “the Anthropocene is provocative because it implies that our current way of life, especially in wealthy parts of the world, is utterly unsustainable… It means that science knows enough to sound the alarm, without knowing all the details about the unfolding emergency” and “deserves to become part of our lexicon – a way we understand who we are, what we’re doing and what our responsibilities are as a species.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock

A startling sight greeted an official from the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate who was on a routine inspection of a remote area of Telemark county in Norway last Friday: A large herd of reindeer lying dead close together on the ground.

323 animals—70 of them calves—were confirmed to be dead, apparently victims of a powerful lightning storm, although that is yet to be fully confirmed.

“We sent up a team of eight people to take samples to be sent to the Norwegian Veterinary Institute for research. Then we will know for sure how the animals died,” NNI spokesman Knut Nylend told The Local.

“We’ve heard about animals being struck by lightning and killed, but I don’t remember hearing about lightning killing animals on this scale before. We don’t know if it was one or more lighting strike; that would only be speculation,” Nylend added.

But is it even possible for so many reindeer to be killed by lightning all at once?

In short, yes. Herds of cows (although usually not 300 of them) have been killed by lightning before, and reportedly more than 650 sheep were killed by lightning in Utah in 1918. Such deaths are likely related to a common reaction to storms by various herd animals: Huddling.

“They were lying there dead in a fairly concentrated area. Reindeer are pack animals and are often close together. During a heavy thunderstorm, they may have gathered even closer together out of fear,” said Nylend.

As to the mechanics of it, it has very little to do with a direct hit by lightning and probably a lot more to do with ground current.

“When animals or people are in groups, most are being killed by the ground current,” John Jensenius, a lightning safety expert from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told The Verge. “First, there’s a direct strike — this is what most people think of when they think of lightning — that hits the tree or maybe the ground nearby. The energy then spreads along the ground surface, and if you’re anywhere near that lightning strike, you absorb it and get shocked.

“Lightning goes up one leg and down another. Animals are more vulnerable because their legs are spread out more, so the ground currents travel more easily in their bodies. It doesn’t matter if they’re touching, or exactly how close they are, it matters that they were all in the area hit by lightning. Ground currents are the thing that’s responsible for the most lightning deaths and injuries in both people and animals.”

Ground current can spread quite far—in this case, perhaps 80 feet in diameter—and when it strikes a living creature, it travels through the body to the heart, which usually stops. In humans, this can often be treated with CPR—but obviously, reindeer aren’t quite so lucky.

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Image credit: Håvard Kjøntvedt

Paleontologists working in the Patagonia region of South America have reportedly discovered a new species of pterosaur, a now-extinct group of flying reptiles that lived during throughout the Mesozoic Era, according to new research published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ.

As lead author Dr. Diego Pol of the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio and his colleagues explained, the new species was identified by well-preserved cranial remains found in the Chubut Province region of south Argentina and has been called Allkauren koi from the native Tehuelche words for brain (‘all’) and ancient (‘karuen’).

Like other pterosaurs, it is believed that this creature possessed the ability to fly thanks primarily to the creature’s lightweight pneumatic bone structure, as well as the presence of elongated digits capable of supporting a wing membrane, the researchers explained in a press release.

However, the brain and nervous system structure of these creatures were previously known only through a series of three-dimensionally preserved fossils. The discovery of Allkauren koi and its well-preserved cranial remains should provide scientists with a new opportunity to analyze their brain structure and learn more about the origins and the evolution of these flying reptiles.

Discovery just the latest to come out of Central and South America

According to Dr. Pol’s team, Allkauren koi lived during the Early Jurassic period, and among the fossils they were able to recover was an uncrushed braincase. Using CT scanning technology, the researchers managed to observe its cranial endocast and inner ear in 3D, and afterward, the team performed a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of newly-discovered fossils.

“Allkaruen, from the middle lower Jurassic limit, shows an intermediate state in the brain evolution of pterosaurs and their adaptations to the aerial environment. As a result, this research makes an important contribution to the understanding of the evolution of all of pterosaurs,” said Dr. Pol, who has published more than 70 research papers on Mesozoic Era reptiles to date.

If Dr. Pol’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he previously worked as part of the team which identified the Titanosaur, the 122-foot-long plant eater that has been dubbed “the world’s largest dinosaur.” That creature, which was identified by more than 200 fossils representing about 70% of its total skeleton and an estimated six different specimens, also called the forests of Patagonia home, living there between 95 and 100 million years ago.

During the unveiling of the Titanosaur’s cast last year, he touted the area as a relatively untapped hotbed for dinosaur fossils: “We are finding these creatures in South America and Central Asia, places that are much less explored. About half of the known titanosaur species come from South America, and… [they] were the ones who achieved the largest body sizes.”

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Image credit: Gabriel Lío

A not-exactly interstellar but still highly important experiment started nearly 365 days ago is coming to a close today—and those involved have a lot to say about it.

Going to Mars will not be an easy process for future astronauts—and to gain a better insight into how this would take its toll on humans, a team of six international scientists spent a year on a simulated version of Mars—an isolated habitat on top Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. This was the longest space travel simulation ever carried out in the U.S.

And, according to The Huffington Post, it was definitely a challenge for the group. As Sheyna Gifford, chief medical and safety officer of the fourth Hawaii Space Exploration and Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS), told the Post, one of the greatest hardships was her “sense of helplessness”—like when learning about the flooding in Louisiana or her grandmother’s sudden and unexpected death.

“I said goodbye to my grandmother over a delayed video message,” she said. “That’s not something any of us ever want to do. So simply not being on Earth, I think everyone would agree, is the most challenging part of space.”

Plus, communications from the simulation could only come from email or voice recording, and everything was set on a 20-minute delay to imitate the delay real-life Martians will face; venturing outside their 1,000-square foot habitat was limited to the area of the simulation, and required one to be dressed in a full spacesuit.

A Long and Lonely Experiment

Needless to say, even being with six other people, it was often a lonely time.

“We changed everything about our lives and limited ourselves to only communicating by email,” said Crew Commander Carmel Johnston. “If anyone didn’t want to hop on that wagon, we just didn’t hear from them this year. It can be pretty disheartening to feel like you are missing out on everything happening at home.”

Simultaneously, the group sometimes just wanted some alone time, which is a bit of a challenge in such a confined space.

“A person can be totally cool one minute and severely annoying the next,” Tristan Bassingthwaighte, the crew architect, told the Post. “The little things people do that you’d never notice in real life can make you think about tripping them on the stairs here.”

The crew of HI-SEAS IV

When all was said and done, none of the crew ever felt like giving up and returning to normal life; the crew had a lot to keep them occupied, including daily scientific research, geological fieldwork, testing equipment, cooking, and exercising. Many crew members also continued with their passions; Bassingthwaighte has been working on a PhD in architecture while learning how to cook, and Gifford has been working as a journalist.

And while this all may seem perhaps tedious, it was extremely important.

“With all the good and the bad comes lessons that you can’t learn unless you are in isolation,” said Johnston. “Every success or failure is still data and an outcome that can be used to improve the lives of astronauts and Martians.”

To this end, NASA has tracked the scientists using cameras, body movement trackers, and electronic surveys, in order to study the cognitive, social, and emotional effects of the experiment. With luck, this will create a better understanding of just what it takes to survive an extended trip to Mars—one people aren’t likely to return from.

But for now, the Hawaiian team gets to go home and do everything they missed, from hugging those they love to something as small as being able to look out your own window.

“I mean holy crap! A whole window that belongs just to me?” Bassingthwaighte told the Post. “I don’t even know what to do with that, we’ve all been sharing a window the size of a medium pizza for the last year.”

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Image credit: Christiane Heinicke/Hi-Seas

Eight new images captured by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau over the course of a three month span show how the salinity of the Dead Sea slowly changing the color of a submerged dress from black to white, Mashable and other media outlets reported earlier this week.

Credit: COURTESY OF MARLBOROUGH CONTEMPORARY

Landau and her partner, photographer Yotam From, first placed the dress – which was a replica of the traditional Hasidic dress worn by the female character Leah in a 100-year-old Yiddish play known as The Dybbuk – in the waters of the Dead Sea back in 2014, according to CNET.

They duo captured a total of eight large color prints of the garment in a series dubbed Salt Bride, which is currently on display at the Marlborough Contemporary gallery in London, and over the span of 12 weeks, the salt water slowly caused the dress’s color to change from black to white.

In The Dybbuk, Leah is a bridge who is possessed by an evil spirit and ultimately exorcised of her demons, and as the gallery explained in a statement, her transformation is echoed by the Salt Bride series “as salt crystals gradually adhere to the fabric,” causing it to change “from a symbol associated with death and madness into the wedding dress it was always intended to be.”

So what caused the dress to change color while submerged?

Born in Jerusalem in 1969 and currently living and working in Tel Aviv, Landau has utilized the transformative effects of salt in her work on several previous occasions, even devoting one entire section of her website to showing various items (including a bicycle, a noose and a violin) which have been drastically altered by prolonged exposure to sodium chloride.

Credit: STUDIO SIGALIT LANDAU

Each of those works was born out of her deep connection with the Dead Sea, according to Live Science. As Landau explained in a statement, “Over the years, I learnt more and more about this low and strange place… It is like meeting with a different time system, a different logic, another planet. It looks like snow, like sugar, like death’s embrace; solid tears, like a white surrender to fire and water combined.”

Making her vision come to life was not an easy task, however. As she explained to the website Artsy, “It was very hard to sink [the dress] and dive in the Dead Sea, where everything floats. The water is saturated with many materials apart from salt, and visibility is not easy to achieve.” She added that her colleague Yotam “needed special equipment and weights of 70 kg (154 lbs) on his body in order to go down.”

The project is an interesting melding of art and science. According to Live Science, the Dead Sea is among the saltiest bodies of water on the planet with a salinity of 34 percent (higher than even the open ocean, according to the website). It is this high salt content that causes it to be so dense, which is what enables people to float, and research suggests that the sea is only getting saltier.

Credit: STUDIO SIGALIT LANDAU

“The hypersalinity is also what’s behind the alchemy that transforms the black dress into a shining white dress… As the dress initially caught bits of extra salt, that led to a locally higher concentration of salt, spurring the salt molecules to line up into crystals that eventually grew and transformed this deathly dress into a sparkly saline jewel,” Live Science senior writer Tia Ghose explained. The Salt Bride exhibition is scheduled to run through September 3.

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Image credit: MATANYA TAUSIG