A Bit of Marc and Casey

This week saw the honouring of what may well be the most futile and asinine research that has been carried out over the last year. The Ig Nobel Awards paid homage to pioneering research into ‘the Gay Bomb’. This Weapon of Mass Disreputation has been developed in the hopes that it will make an enemy’s troops sexually irresistible to each other. In the world of physics, break-throughs in the previously hauntingly unclear area of wrinkled pages were recognised in the award ceremony. But the most sociologically applicable discovery has been in the discipline of chemistry. Researchers have found the ice cream connoisseur’s holy grail, the ability to extract vanilla fragrance from cow dung.

To an eye untrained in the scientific method these discoveries may seem ridiculous at best. To tell you the truth they probably are. But still, one cannot look lightly upon the importance of scientific research. A previous laureate of the Ig Nobel awards was given to researchers who thought pigeons to recognise the difference between different art styles of Monet and Picaso. Though it does seem laughable, this research was key to the development of educational programmes for children with autism. So even in it’s most seemingly dim, science can be a torch of discovery. As a tribute to this, I will produce some of these discoveries in point form throughout the article

RANDOM FACT ONE: A human Tapeworm can grow up to the size of 22.9meters.

Science is not simply a subject or a module option. Yes physics, biology and chemistry all boil down to course classes and maths boils down to a game of ‘countdown’, but science in its ubiquity surpasses what can be called a mere module. The cacophony that is biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, medicine and a myriad of other disciplines combine harmoniously to give a way of looking at the world, a way of living in the world, indeed it gives us a way of life and life itself.

RANDOM FACT TWO: Without the lining of mucus your stomach would digest itself.

Physics “The Daddy of Science” was originally called ‘natural philosophy’. “Philosophy” telling us that it is a search for answers and truth. “Natural” not only pinpointing where we are looking for these answers, but also declaring these answers are neither latent nor conceptual but also are in empirically rooted in nature. Anything from the moon in the night sky, the big pizza pie baking and the hormonal bio-chemical imbalance that is amour. The world around us is constructed in science.

RANDOM FACT THREE: Each person sheds forty lbs of skin in a lifetime.

This beautifully precise mechanism, more than anything else, helps us to grasp what it is that is going on around us. And does so better and more accurately than any other method. Common sense may be one of these to consider. A method we have been taught to utilise from an early age. It is in sense what society judges to be sensible, but how sensible is common sense in truth?

In may 2006 comet fragments from comet 73P15 Schwassmann-Wachmann passed closely to the Earths atmosphere. This sparked some tabloid fear of doomsday scenarios. With Bruce Willis style Armageddon fear or worse yet ………Deep Impact. So here common sense under the influence of Hollywood led us to believe it was sensible to fear these fragments. But this brings us on to inane scientific

RANDOM FACT FOUR: The risk of a human being hit by a meteorite is once in every 9300 years.

Another example is in how common sense tells us that ‘opposites attract’, but science says otherwise. You’re more likely to fall in love to fall in love with someone else similar to you in intelligence, physical attractiveness, hobbies and even political opinions. Well in my own opinion there always was something about Willy O’Dea, yowza!

Other than science and common sense what is another method of understanding the world around us? Could simple observations lead to better understanding? But here we must ask how much can we trust our own senses and what the world shows us. Take Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester as an example. This is a collection of theories based on water flow, planetary revolution and other natural occurrences. One such observation Da Vinci made was of water running in rivers of which the source was located in mountainous peaks. Based on this observation he assumed that at the world’s core was a gigantic water filled cavern, pumping water out like a life source. Interestingly enough he assumed the surface of the moon was aqueous. As only then (as far as he could observe) could the moon reflect light, these and others are examples of the fallibility of observation.

RANDOM FACT FIVE: Giraffes often only sleep for periods of 20 minutes in twenty-four hours and also never lie down.


Some might sense a contradiction protruding its ugly head, but hold on just one cotton pickin’ minute! Da Vinci is attributed with being one of the greatest fathers of science and yet here I am critiquing him. But here is the catch, Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester theories did not fully entail the scientific method, which we know and love, they were based solely on observation. Even more intriguingly, those few on which he did experiment (i.e. water flow) in the codex were proven to be true (look it up!). And therein lies the precision acuity of science.

It is a combination of the curiosity of observation, the publication and proliferation of common sense with its own traits of hypothesising, and experimentation that drives it as a force to be reckoned with. Want to know what the best part is (no really I mean it)? Despite this grand and complex methodical manner of analysis, the scientific community thrives on one thing to drive them forward, scepticism.

RANDOM FACT SIX: 10% of all human beings are alive now! AND I know I’m spoiling you with these but here’s one more: 50% of all humans that have ever lived have dies as a result of malaria.

Scepticism is the snide, over-bearing mother that says ‘that’s not good enough!’ and it keeps science alive in assuming that our present knowledge isn’t the full story but only part of it. This is what drove Einstein to redevelop Newton’s beliefs; it’s what drove neuropsychology away from the heart as the behavioural centre (as Aristotle said) and to the brain. Basically scientists are the ones that turn around and to declare with zeal ‘I am soooo much smarter than you’ (especially to arts students).

RANDOM FACT SEVEN: Relative to its size, the gorilla has the smallest testicles in the animal kingdom.

So kids, even if all you read were the ridiculous facts I’m glad we all learned something today. Even if it was testicles, sleeping habits, skin deposits, mucus and your chances of being under a meteor when it lands.