Humanity’s relentless pursuit of knowledge has, over the years, brought countless benefits to society. It has also provided us with a host of bizarre scientific findings and obscure facts.
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In this Spotlight, we cover some of the more left-field scientific studies to have graced the highly illustrious pages of peer-reviewed journals.
We will cover research that spans a broad range of topics, including penguins, blinking, dog poop, and lawnmowers.
Although the article is relatively light-hearted, it certainly provides some food for thought.
We hope that you will be left feeling inspired, enlightened, and perhaps amused.
In science, no stone should be left unturned; you never know what might be hiding underneath.
What weighs more: 1 pound of lead or 1 pound of feathers? This classic trick question might have a slightly illogical “true” answer.
Of course, empirically, a pound of lead and a pound of feathers weigh the same amount. But when this is put to the test with unsuspecting human subjects, things get a little more confusing.
In a 2007 study, participants were blindfolded and asked to lift two unmarked boxes of identical size, shape, and mass. One of the boxes contained a pound of lead and the other a pound of feathers. The participants were not informed of what was in either box.
Surprisingly, more often than chance, the participants reported that the box containing lead was heavier.
In 2017, an 820-foot-long, 143-ton, solid blockage was found in the sewers beneath London in the United Kingdom. It comprised cooking grease, diapers, sanitary towels, and other things that had found their way into the toilets of city.
This monster “fatberg” went viral as one of the most disgusting things the world has ever seen, but — thanks to science — the fatberg is now destined for greater things.
After chipping the fatberg into blocks, scientists realized that if the oils and fat were separated from the other waste, they could be converted into a relatively clean type of fuel called biodiesel.
This was enough to convince U.K. water supplier Thames Water; they issued a statement revealing that this was exactly what they planned to do with the fatberg. They concluded that there was enough biodiesel locked within it to run 350 London buses for a day.
At least one scientific study has calculated the pressure at which penguins poop. The chinstrap and Adélie penguin species are thought to expel watery poop at about 10 kilopascals (kPa), and oily poop at about 60 kPa, in case you were wondering.
The authors conclude:
“ The forces involved, lying well above those known for humans, are high, but do not lead to an energetically wasteful turbulent flow.”
In 1994, researchers found that women who take birth control pills blink more often than women who do not. Quite a lot more, actually; on average, the study found, women on birth control pills blink about 32 percent more than women not using this method of contraception.
Although this appears to be a strange side effect, it is worth noting that — according to Alexandra Pope and Jane Bennett’s 2008 book The Pill: Are you sure it’s for you?
Other studies have found a link between the use of birth control pills and eye health. For instance, a 2013 study revealed that women who have used birth control pills for 3 years or more could be twice as likely to develop glaucoma compared with women who have not used this type of contraception.