Throwback: Happy Thought for 26 July 2019

 Have a happy thought:

Apparently art conservators often use their own saliva as a cleaning agent (for specific surfaces of course).

Now, thanks to a team of intrepid scientists, we know what makes human saliva such a good cleaning agent: an enzyme called α – amylase  

…oh, and the fact is that saliva does actually work!

 

On behalf of anyone-who-has-ever-watched-after-a-small-child… vindication!

 

This brought to you by the 2018 igNoble Prizes (“The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology”)

 

Other winners included (actual article titles included because sometimes they’re as good as the topic):

• Could roller coaster rides help in passing kidney stones easily and quickly? (Answer – Yes!)
• "Validation of a Functional Pyelocalyceal Renal Model for the Evaluation of Renal Calculi Passage While Riding a Roller Coaster," Marc A. Mitchell, David D. Wartinger, The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, vol. 116, October 2016, pp. 647-652.

 

• Chimpanzees imitate humans just as often (and as well) as the humans imitate them
• "Spontaneous Cross-Species Imitation in Interaction Between Chimpanzees and Zoo Visitors," Tomas Persson, Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc, and Elainie Madsen, Primates, vol. 59, no. 1, January 2018, pp 19–29.

 

• Wine experts can tell by smell the presence of a fly in a glass of wine
• "The Scent of the Fly," Paul G. Becher, Sebastien Lebreton, Erika A. Wallin, Erik Hedenstrom, Felipe Borrero-Echeverry, Marie Bengtsson, Volker Jorger, and Peter Witzgall, bioRxiv, no. 20637, 2017

 

• People who use complicated products ignore instruction manuals
• "Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products," Alethea L. Blackler, Rafael Gomez, Vesna Popovic and M. Helen Thompson, Interacting With Computers, vol. 28, no. 1, 2014, pp. 27-46.

 

• Using postage stamps to test whether the male sexual organ is functioning properly
• "Nocturnal Penile Tumescence Monitoring With Stamps," John M. Barry, Bruce Blank, Michael Boileau, Urology, vol. 15, 1980, pp. 171-172.

 

 

2019 Prizes are coming September 12th!