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Planet of Spoons
The Scotsman: Researchers from the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in Melbourne have studied the movements of teaspoons in public & private spaces and postulated a "spoonoid" planet to which they abscond.
A study monitored the movements of 70 secretly numbered teaspoons over five months.
Supporting expectations, 80 per cent of the spoons vanished during the period - although those in private areas lasted nearly twice as long as those in communal sections. [...]
Regretting that scientific literature was "strangely bereft" of teaspoon-related research, the scientists offered a few theories to explain the phenomenon. Taking a tip from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , they suggested that the teaspoons were quietly migrating to a planet uniquely populated by "spoonoid" life. [...]
On the other hand, they suggested, people might simply be taking them.
See BMJ for the full text of the paper, plus some insightful responses from the scientific community ("Teabags and forks as confounding factors", "Chaotic Randomly Uniform Muddled Botch-up System (CRUMBS)", "Humans have spread into the remotest and most inhospitable regions of the world in an effort to get as far away from one another as possible. So too may it be with spoons", &c.).
(Via We make money not art & Nice cup of tea and a sit down.)
January 3, 2006 | Permalink
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Comments
But what about socks?
"In a highly classified, and so far unpublished study I determined that socks are the larval stage of the common wire coat hanger. When temperatures and humidly are exactly right sock larvae crawl into the far recesses of washing machines to pupate emerging as fully formed, but still pliable hangers (bodies fully expand and harden instantly on exposure to sunlight) some 36 hours later. This timing ensures they will have the cover of darkness when they leave the machines to seek mates. Probably to maximise survival each sock twin seems to require slightly different conditions for initiation of metamorphosis which is why both socks of a pair rarely 'vanish' on the same day. As adults can only mate while hanging by their hook shaped tails, closets and wardrobes are their favoured habitat."
Posted by: oboreruhito at Jan 3, 2006 5:44:57 PM
