Day: 6 July 2006

World Cup Scores!

The World Cup has scored a green goal! Sorry, I couldn’t resist such cheesy writing. Seriously though, the World Cup organizers in Germany have surpassed their own goal of making the event have a small ecological footprint as possible. One thing they wanted to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that normally would have been released for such a large event by encouraging bike riding and riding public transit. They did more too!

“There are water-free urinals, overflow limiters on the wash-basins and electricity-saving measures, which are all things that save resources but go virtually unnoticed. The fans also don’t get to see the solar panels on the stadiums, which is a shame.”

The 5 Second Rule

The infamous 5-second rule is true. You know, it’s the rule when you drop food on the ground and it’s still good for 5-seconds so you can still eat it. Basically, a lot of surfaces are actually cleaner than we think so they don’t contain a lot of bacteria. I’ve also heard that it some bacteria (and some other gross things) need more time to cling to food than just 5-seconds.

“”Jillian swabbed the floors around the University in the lab, hall, dormitory, and cafeteria to see how many organisms we could isolate,” Agle tells WebMD. “We examined the swabs, and there were very few microorganisms. That surprised me. I told her to do it again.”

The results were the same. Agle has since earned her doctoral degree and is a scientist in new product development for Rich Foods in Buffalo, N.Y. “I think the floors were so clean, from a microbiological point of view, because floors are dry, and most pathogens — like salmonella, listeria, or E. coli — can’t survive without moisture.” “