Science Trivia

chemistry labScience is truly wonderful. Thanks to science we have travelled to the moon and back, we have sent probes into deep space that will reach the outer limits of our solar system. Science has given us ways of communicating with people all over in the world in just fractions of a second. It has enabled us to understand and eliminate many diseases. However, there is the other part of science, the strange, the weird and the just plain odd experiments that really make you wonder.

One such strange study was done by the Institute of Coastal Research in Sweden. Their study involved listening to the sounds that herrings make. More specifically, actual herring farts. Yes, they were listening and recording herring farts.

Belly button lint (BBL) was the subject of another research project. Some of the final conclusions of the study were that males have more BBL than females and older hairy males had more BBL than their younger counter parts. The study was also able to conclude that people who had outies had virtually little or no lint. They also determined that the color of the lint had a direct relationship to the color of clothing worn by the person.

One study compared the distance that a dog flea can jump vs. the distance that a cat flea can jump.

In Norway there was a study done to see if garlic would really repel vampires. Due to the fact that they were unable to locate any vampires, they used leeches to test their theories. Note- the leeches apparently liked the blood containing garlic

There was a fascinating study done on the force required to drag sheep over various surfaces.

Chemical Engineers at the University of Minnesota did a study on the speed at which a human could swim in syrup. The study revealed that speeds were about the same.

Coconuts were the subject of another research study. The study was done to try to determine the number and severity of injuries caused by falling coconuts.

One scientist, a Dr. Yukio Hirose made a study of why pigeons avoided defecating on a certain statue. The bronze statue was of Prince Yamato-Takeru-no-mikoto and was located in Kenrokuen Park. The good Dr. was able to determine that pigeons avoided this particular statue because it contained some arsenic.

We have to thank Ivette Bassa for her research into food development. It was through her work and diligence that we now have bright blue jello.

Certainly not be ignored is the ever popular pink flamingo. This truly wonderful invention, or maybe art form is a better term was created by Don Featherstone. His world famous pink flamingo design went on sale for the first time in 1958. The flamingo was only one of hundreds of three dimensional figures that Don designed.

Another strange science invention is clocky. Clocky is probably the most annoying alarm clock ever designed. This unique device was invented by Gauri Nanda. She was a graduate student from MIT. Her alarm, known as clocky, has the unique ability of running and hiding. If the snooze button is activated the alarm will automatically move. It moves in a random direction and for a random amount of distance and time. This forces the person to get up and hunt for the alarm in order to turn it off.

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