Tigers Contribute to Science with Help from George Costanza

South Carolina's own Clemson University has funded an undergraduate research project inspired by Seinfeld. Finally some serious experts have taken it upon themselves to suss out the microbial toxicity of double-dipped dip.

"That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip."

Turns out Timmy was right. Led by "food microbiologist" (only at an ag school...) Dr. Paul L. Dawson (who also brought you the ground-breaking research on the "five second rule"), and run by 9 undergrads (I know two of them) volunteers dipped chips (actually Wheat Thins) in water at 3 different acidities, salsa, cheese dip, and chocolate syrup. On average, in three of the six dips, about 10,000 bacteria were transferred from the double-dipper into the dip. The report, published in the Journal of Food Safety, called the actual risks of double-dipping "debatable", but it did conclude with this little quip:

"Next time you take a bite of your chip, however, and are tempted to commit a second dip, keep in mind that the numbers have been calculated, and the bacteria are having just as much of a party as you are."

I especially liked the part of the NY Times article where the Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman compared this to the inventors of seedless watermelon (an old Seinfeld routine).