5 Second Rule Follow Up & New Gadget?

This blog is going to be a little different then most, but hopefully it still meets the requirements for an A! Well, the first part of this blog is going to be a follow up on my “Remember the 5-Second Rule?” blog. I found an article that answered a question that was left on that specific blog. So, hopefully the commentator reads this blog too!

http://www.toonpool.com/user/8371/files/bad_milk_885615.jpg

A group of biology students led by a microbiology professor, Anthony Hilton, studied the amount of E. Coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria on different substances after they had been dropped on the floor for three to 30 seconds. The researchers used toast, pasta, biscuits and sticky, sweet foods according to the author of this article, Jenn Harris. Like the previous blog I wrote, the researchers also dropped the food on different surfaces such as carpet, tiled, and laminate. Like the previous article I “blogged” about, the researchers found bacteria from floor to food was lowest when dropped on carpet. Now here’s where the commentator’s question gets answered. “Bacteria was most likely transferred from laminate or tiled surfaces to moist foods that were dropped for more than five seconds.” The author did a great job of explaining the main point of this article and made the results easy to understand. No questions from my perspective were needed because of the author’s great job in writing the main points of the article. Once again, do you use the 5-Second Rule?

Now since the blog was a follow up I wanted to do, I had already searched for different microbe and microbiome articles to write about, but I found this video to interesting not to share. Maybe next week I’ll “blog” about it, but see for yourself! Would you like these "gadgets"?

http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-five-second-rule-new-study-20140314,0,2859531.story#axzz2xZd7Bph7 (Article For 5 Second Rule Follow Up)

http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-smart-tab-expiration-spoiled-food-20140317,0,208076.story#axzz2xZZeepVa (Article For Video) (Youtube)

Deep Sea Microbes

Microbes are almost everywhere, as we all know by now. Microbes are in the air, on surfaces, in waters, and even in the human body! But did you know microbes that are in the deep-sea can live off oxygen in quantities that were too small to be even measured? Well until now, according to an article written by S. Bhanoo in the New York Times.

http://www.sciencecentric.com/images/news/thermophilic_bacteria_300_196.jpg

Hans Roy is a geomicrobiologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. Dr. Roy and his colleagues measured the oxygen concentration in layers of sediment gathered from the sea bottom, 100 feet below the surface, in the North Pacific Gyre (off Hawaii). The researches wanted to calculate how much oxygen should have diffused (spread or intermingled) into each layer of sediment and any missing oxygen was likely to have been consumed by microbes, said Dr. Roy. The researchers found that the deepest microbes used just 0.001 femtomoles of oxygen per day. The article stated “to put it another way, it would take 10 years for a microbe to consume the amount that a human inhales in a single breath.”

I’ve been saying this almost every time I write or comment on a blog, microbes are unbelievable organisms. At first reading this article I felt since microbes are so small they shouldn’t need much oxygen to survive. But then I reread the last sentence in paragraph 2 of my blog, and I had to rethink. Ten years for a microbe to consume the amount that a human inhales in one single breathe. This just says to me microbes are very, very small, or are very rare organisms that can live through anything.  But then I decided both of these are true! I think this article is well written because it gets straight to the point and even simplifies main facts for a “non scientist” to understand. Although this article is well written I feel it arises many questions. Such as what organisms/microbes are in the deep sea? Since the article stated, “the whole community seems to be hovering right at the hunger limit” why aren’t these microbes moving someplace else? The article did state, since these microbes are so slow moving, they are difficult to study. I’m now more interested on what microbes are really down in the deep sea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/science/deep-sea-microbes-that-barely-breathe.html?_r=0

Remember the 5-Second Rule?

Do you ever remember using the five-second rule as a little kid? Or maybe even now? Well, did you ever wonder if picking up your food in the time slot of five seconds really worked? Well you’re in luck because in 2007 there was a study done to see if this 5-second rule really was “beneficial” and not just another tale we were told as kids.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Five_second.png

In a study published in 2007, Clemson University researchers tested salmonella placed on wood, tile, or carpet. The bologna was dropped on the different types of surfaces for 5, 30, or 60 seconds. The results were pretty astonishing! On both wood and tile, more than 99 percent of the bacteria were transferred from the surfaces to the bologna almost immediately and there was no difference by the time of contact. The carpet surface also had no difference by contact time, but the number of bacteria transferred was smaller. “The amount transferred decreased over hours, but there were still thousands of bacteria per square centimeter on the surfaces after 24 hours, and hundreds survived on the surfaces for as long as four weeks.”

So in other words, the five-second rule does not apply! For one, I think this article is interesting because of the results! Almost immediately bacteria is transferred from the floor to your food! I think this article is well written because it gets straight to the point. That point being, the five-second rule doesn’t really work (for some, like we’ve been told). What puzzles me though, is this with all foods and not just bologna? I think this study should have consisted more information on if there were certain types of foods that attracted more bacteria. Or if certain bacteria were only attracted to certain foods?  This article can make you think, was my childhood just a lie? On a serious note like Dr. Roy M. Gulick said in the article, “The five-second rule probably should become the zero-second rule.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01qna.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%23%2Fmicrobiology%2F&_r=0

Can Microbes Be Affecting Your Diet?

https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/18295
(This is not the research of Emory University researchers.)

Are you a big eater? Well a study shows that eating more many not simply be because of all the calories that are ready and available. This study suggests that microbes in the gut could actually help drive appetite. Sounds crazy right? Well, let’s get right into this new study by Emory University researchers.

Previous studies show that overweight people and normal-weight people each carry different types and amounts of microbes that naturally live in the intestine. The Emory University researchers looked into mice to see why this was and found shocking information. The mice with an altered immune system were fatter than regular mice and had many disorders such as insulin problems and high blood pressure.  The altered “immunity” in the mice mean “somewhat” different bacteria grew in their intestines than that in normal mice.  According to Andrew Gewirtz who is an associate pathology professor at Emory, this drove bigger appetites, metabolic syndrome, and a low-grade inflammation believed to be key to obesity’s illnesses.

Gewirtz then transferred bacteria from the fat mice into the germ-free intestines of normal newborn mice. These “newborn” mice than began eating more and developed inflammation and insulin problems like the “fat mice.” Gewirtz also noted that if you restrict access to food, the altered mice do not gain weight, but experience other symptoms.

This article was very interesting due to the fact that microbes have such a huge impact on us. In class I learned that microbes actually help digest food but to hear they can also be causing you to eat more is pretty fascinating! I believe this article was well written but I feel it should have included more detail; such as what actual microbe or microbes were causing more mice to eat. Are these the same microbes found in mice that are found in humans? I feel this article should have included more “human research” if there is any. Overall this article was shocking and makes you realize all the things microbes can do to your body.

http://www.latimes.com/health/sns-health-bacteria-big-eaters,0,1246678.story#axzz2uwFwnRyf