The biscuits in our break room now go soft in six hours. They used to last until Friday. I have checked the results twice, and I am here to brief the public.
This year's El Niño is exceptionally strong. El Niño is when part of the Pacific Ocean gets warm and the weather everywhere else gets ideas. Reports this week describe food security concerns, wildfires and warnings about power supplies. Those are being handled by other people. My study is about the biscuits.
We tested six packets. One more packet sat sealed in a desk drawer as our control group. A control group is the one you leave alone so you can compare. It also went soft.
"This means the drawer is not safe either," said my co-author, who has not opened a drawer since Wednesday.
I want to be careful. Science is about being careful. We cannot yet rule out that someone left the kettle on. The odds that this happened by chance are low. We measure that with a p-value. A p-value is a number that tells you how surprised to be. We were very surprised. One of us had to sit down.
