However you describe these research projects—goofy, offensive—they all beg the question: Did someone really need to spend all that time and money to tell us that…
DUCKS LIKE RAIN
Says Who: Marian Dawkins, Oxford University, 2009
The Study: British scientists gave a group of ducks full access to a pond, a water trough, and a shower. They found that the ducks preferred standing under the shower to standing in still water. The three-year study cost more than half a million dollars.
Says who: Eric Goplerud, George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, D.C., 2008
The study: Fifteen percent of bartenders and cocktail waitresses abuse alcohol—the highest level of any industry. By comparison, only 5.4% of teachers, nurses, and social workers are problem drinkers. The likely cause, according to this statistical study: “Proximity to and availability of alcohol.”
Says who: Russell Poldrack, UCLA, 2006
The study: Subjects were given a set of cards and asked to mentally keep track of shapes drawn on the cards. In a separate test, they were given a new set of cards to sort but were also fed a series of low- and high-pitched beeps through earphones. They were then asked to keep count of the high-pitched beeps while they sorted the cards. The results showed that subjects had better recall when they performed only one task at a time.
Says who: R. Dennis Middlemist, Eric S. Knowles, Charles F. Matter, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1976
The study: Researchers asked 60 men to urinate in a public lavatory and measured their micturation times (“time of intent” to “start of flow”) according to how closely an assistant unknown to the subject stood nearby. Three “personal space” comfort levels were used: adjacent, one urinal removed, and out of the room. With no one there, it took an average of 4.8 seconds for subjects to start peeing. With someone one urinal away, 6.2 seconds. With someone right there: 8.4.
Scientists in England built the world’s smallest snowman—smaller than the width of a human hair.
Says who: Tadeusz Kawecki, Joep Burger, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, 2008
The study: One group of fruit flies was left alone; the other group was given tasks, and the flies who showed the most intelligence were bred to each other to produce more “smart” flies. After generations, the flies in the “stupid” colony lived an average of 80 to 85 days, but the “smart” flies lived for only 50 to 60 days. Why? Because, the study concluded, a more active brain requires more fuel…and therefore burns out its body’s reserves faster (at least if you’re a fruit fly).
Says who: Sandie Taylor, Bath Spa University, England, 2007
The study: Ninety-six volunteers were asked to read a transcript of a mugging case. Half were shown a photograph of an attractive suspect, the other half a picture of a not-so-attractive suspect. Both groups were asked to render a verdict. The good-looking subject was let off far more often than the less attractive suspect.
JAMES BOND DOESN’T PREFER BLONDES
Says who: Kimberly Neuendorf, Cleveland State University, 2009
The study: For a 2009 article in the journal Sex Roles, Neuendorf and her team analyzed the physical traits of 195 female characters from the first 20 James Bond films. Of the 97 women he was “intimate” with, only 27 percent were blonde and 15 percent were redheads. It turns out 007 prefers brunettes—59 percent of “Bond girls” had black or brown hair.
Smallest Texas state park: The .006-acre zone around the grave of Davy Crockett’s second wife.