High-school student Jillian Clarke investigated the scientific validity of the "5-second rule" during her apprenticeship in Hans Blaschek's University of Illinois lab this summer. You know the rule: If food falls to the floor and it's in contact with the floor for fewer than 5 seconds, it's safe to pick it up and eat it. More

For most people, just a whiff of food that has made them sick in the past is enough to trigger a wave of nausea -- and to prevent them from eating that food again. It's a response that's instantaneous, involuntary, and so fundamental to basic biology that it occurs in a broad range of species. Even worms, researchers have now shown, quickly learn to avoid smells associated with foods that have made them ill. More

If only they taught food chemistry in schools we can understand how to cook to perfection. Here lies the secret of delicious roasting. More