In: Statistics and Probability
1) E. coli infections can be deadly, especially when outbreaks occur from contaminated food sources and infect immune-compromised people. In 2006, an E. coli outbreak lead to almost 300 illnesses and 3 deaths. The source was eventually tracked to spinach grown in the Salinas Valley in California. The bacteria were actually inside the spinach leaves, having contaminated the water supply. The produce was tainted by waste from an adjacent Angus cattle ranch.
Suppose (very pessimistically) that a bag of spinach has a one in five chance of being contaminated with E. coli. What is the probability that a box of spinach (12 bags) has contamination?
What is the probability that a box is free of E. coli ?
If the likelihood that a bag of spinach is contaminated increases to 50%, what is the probability that a box is uncontaminated?
2. Working towards your PhD in biology, you are conducting a series of experiments evaluating the growth of wheat varietals in arid conditions. You know that the mass of an individual plant at peak maturity of the best varietal has a mean of 32g and a variance of 25g.
What is the probability that any individual plant of this varietal is less than 22g?
What is the probability that any individual plant is between 16g and 32g?
What is the probability that any individual plant is over 38g?