But you still shouldn't eat that yellow snow...The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the '5 second rule' -- the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. Although people have long followed the 5 second rule, until now it was unclear whether it actually helped.
Professor Hilton added: "Our study showed surprisingly that a large majority of people are happy to consume dropped food, with women the most likely to do so. But they are also more likely to follow the 5 second rule, which our research has shown to be much more than an old wives tail."Either someone didn't proofread this or the good Professor slipped in a Freudian reference to being a widower....
If the only place that is cold is your backyard, does it mean Global Warming is wrong?
The image above shows the total square kilometers covered by 850 hPa temperatures < -5 C for the DJF period in comparison to "normal" (solid blue is mean, and the dashed are +/- 1 standard deviation). Data is for 1948-49 to present.RP summed it up nicely:
He also noted that this year had the least overall (time averaged/integrated) spatial extent for the period of record.
We, unfortunately, have been the ones stuck in the anomalously coldest pocket the entire time.
On the other Hiatus.....
The Bitch is Back....Circa 2008, I was contacted by a research scientist at Sandia Labs. They had an informal Peak Oil working group, and he said that they were stunned when they worked through the implications of “Net Export Math.” A few months later, I was invited to make a presentation on net exports at Sandia (I had to pass a security background check to get on to the facility).In any case, I made my presentation at Sandia, which was shown via video link to other national labs (Los Alamos, etc.), to what has to be my most intimidating audience ever. There was no real argument over the model, since they very quickly understood the simple math. I understand that a contingent of scientists from Sandia subsequently approached senior DOE/EIA executives about their concerns about net exports, and the scientists were told that the higher ups didn’t want to hear it.Fast forward to late 2012. I was part of an ASPO-USA delegation that briefed senior EIA and DOE personnel in Washington D.C. (including the EIA administrator) on Peak Oil and Peak Exports (at least they were willing to listen). I made a brief presentation on net exports, in the context of increasing demand from developing countries, and the first question I asked them was if anyone at the EIA was modeling future Global Net Exports of oil, assuming a continuing increase in consumption in net oil exporting countries. The answer was “No.”
