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Episode: Chinese Invasion Alarm Original Air Date: October 19, 2005 Myths: Chinese Invasion Alarm, 5 Second Rule
"Chinese Invasion Alarm"
The Myth:
Did the ancient Chinese have an advance-warning system to alert villages of invading armies?
The Experts:
Frank Jacobi - expert on the Priest Mine
Memorable Quotes:
"My people come from a long line of goat shavers, so I feel it's in my blood...I'm looking forward to calling my parents tonight...be like, 'Guess what I did today'..." - Kari
"Jamie actually did silver mining back in the 30's in South America...didn't you?" - Adam
"So, Jamie? If we...uh...find gold, are you gonna share it with me?" - Tory
According to initial research, the ancient Chinese villagers constructed a system of holes dug around a village with large drums placed inside the holes, and then people with the best hearing in the village were stationed around the holes, listening to the drums to determine which way the invading army was coming from.
Tory and Grant visit a pottery shop in San Francisco's Chinatown, where they find a suitable pot from which to make their drum. Grant and Kari set about making the drums, while Tory builds a 'marching machine', using some surplus military boots and some pieces of steel. Before the initial build is complete, it was discovered that the initial information was wrong. The drums were actually used to detect BURROWING armies, trying to dig their way under the city walls. Apparently, the drums were much larger than first thought (around 200-liter capacity), the shafts themselves about five paces apart, and the holes about 15 feet deep, however the part of the men with the best hearing listening to the drums was still correct.
With this new information, Kari and Tory obtain larger pots and skins to make a new drum Upon their return to M5, Kari has to shave the goat skin; the skins they need for the bigger drum have hair still attached. They need to be shaved with clippers and a disposable razor to prepare the surface. Once the shaving is completed, she and Grant make another drum.
Kari goes to the Priest Mine near San Francisco with Frank Jacobi to scout out suitable locations to set up the test. She and Frank find a good spot near the Priest Mine's airshaft to dig the 15-foot deep shaft and place the drum at the bottom. Grant, meanwhile, borrows some 'geophones' from the US Geological Survey to use as a control for the experiment. He tests the geophones in M5's parking lot with the help of one of his Robot Wars robots, Deadblow. The geophones work, and M5's lot looks like the aftereffects of Robot Wars.
In preparation of the test, Tory builds a safety gantry to place over the shaft they intend to dig near the Priest Mine. A large drilling machine is brought in to drill a 15-foot deep hole for them. Adam and Jamie head into the Priest Mine to scout out some places inside to perform their tests. They find three suitable areas inside, near their newly dug shaft, to see if the drum and the USGS's geophones can detect the vibrations of their picks as they are swung against the rock.
The following morning, Grant places a geophone at the bottom of the shaft while Adam shouts down the airshaft to Jamie to hit the rock with the pick. Grant can hear some faint sounds with the geophone, so they know it works. Kari reports that she cannot hear anything in the shaft, so the whole cast lends a hand to lower the drum into place. Tory and Jamie head below ground to start the
Test:
Tory and Jamie start at the first position, taking 20 blows against the strata, as Grant counts off the blows on the geophone topside. Kari can hear every blow with the drum, but Adam hears nothing. The team is astounded that the ancient alarm actually works.
The subsequent repeats of the test prove this alarm could have actually worked, though in one area of the Priest Mine, nothing could be heard; .which, ironically, was directly beneath their alarm shaft. The myth itself was deemed: PLAUSIBLE.
"Five Second Rule"
The Myth:
Is it safe to eat something after it has been on the floor for less than five seconds? This myth has been around forever, and, in typical Mythbusters fashion, Adam and Jamie set out to prove if it's really a good idea to eat something off the floor using the so-called 'five second rule'.
Memorable Quotes:
"Oop...I picked it up after three seconds...would you eat it?"
"But, I wouldn't eat it just because you handled it" -
Adam and Jamie
"Adam *has* to act this way...it's in his contract..." Rob
Adam and Jamie plan to test various areas of M5's floors, even going so far as to test the restroom. As an extension to this myth, Adam's heard another myth about how clean a restroom is supposed to be; in particular, the toilet seat.
The MythBusters gather their samples, and place them in an incubator to check just how filthy M5 *really* is. The next day, as they analyze the samples, they find out that there seems to be a rather inconsistent distribution of bacteria all around the shop, however the toilet seat is perhaps the cleanest area altogether. To eliminate the variations, they decide to contaminate some floor tiles evenly to get some more consistent results. They obtain floor tiles, beef broth, sterile plastic templates, and aluminum pans to make their evenly contaminated floor samples for a more precise test of the Five Second Rule.
Jamie prepares the floor tiles for testing. He gets some pastrami (a wet food) and some cheesy cracker snacks (a dry food). The samples are dropped on a tile for 2 seconds and six seconds. They take swabs of each area of food and wipe those onto some more Petri dishes to get some results. They also take samples of some 'control' foods, in case the foods were already contaminated.
The next morning, they check the samples, however the results are less than definitive. It seems that no matter how long food has been on the, it is going to be contaminated, regardless of the Five Second Rule. Therefore, Adam and Jamie try one more test, without the foods. They take the Petri dishes and apply those to the tiles for 2 seconds and 6 seconds to see what, if any, contamination would result. They put the dishes in the incubator one last time only to discover there is no difference in the amount of time that a piece of food spends on the floor under the so-called Five Second Rule.
The myth was tested, and deemed to be: BUSTED.
"Dog's Mouth Vs. Human's Mouth"
The Myth:
A dog has a cleaner mouth than that of a human.
Memorable Quotes:
"No French-kissing dogs, I think, is our conclusion here." Adam
"I would be more inclined to say, 'No French-kissing Adam'." Jamie
"...I don't eat my own poo..." - Adam
During the Five Second Rule testing, Adam decides to test the cleanliness of a dog's mouth vs. human's (Adam's) mouth myth. Adam licks one of the contact plates, while Lulu (one of the MB's assistants' dog) licks another. The samples are placed into an incubator to allow them to develop.
When the samples are analyzed, it is determined that Lulu's mouth had fewer germs than Adam's did.
The myth was tested, and deemed to be: PLAUSIBLE.
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Episode Descriptions 
