Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Scientists Verify "You Smelt It, You Dealt It" Rule
After years of contentious schoolyard debate, the "You Smelt It, You Dealt It" Rule is finally being called Law by the scientific community. Infamous among the flatulent and the dislikers of the flatulent, this old adage has been at the forefront of much discussion over the past week. Young scientists Tom and Robert Bueller were the initiative takers in tackling this debate, which some say, is as old as farting itself.
A flawless experimental design presented at the Mulbury Middle School science fair yielded the definitive results:
"We just stayed together in the same bathroom, one step apart, every time one of us had to fart. Of course, pooing wasn't counted." explained young Tom. "Then, when one of us smelt the fart, we marked down on a big piece of paper who smelt it first. Luckily, Mrs. Barns taught us how to make pie charts in math last week, so we knew how to present the data in a meaningful way".
Continued Robert: "Dad helped us make sure that the alpha values were OK and that P was less than or equal to 0.05. I don't know what that means, but it got us lots of points in our conclusion at the science fair." He added, "Thanks dad!"
After earning big marks at the local science fair, (but failing to make it to the regionals), the boy's project, presented on a red Bristol-board, was noticed by a local enterogastrologist. While he wishes to remain nameless, it is rumoured that his undergraduate students heard him remark that, "The boys stumbled across something I'd been hoping to prove for a long time." Despite certain ill-smelt feelings, the Dr. referenced the boy's project in the write-up of a similar experiment he later conducted with cats. This citation got the boys noticed by the local university, and has since sent them to a conference in Seattle and a cat farm in Wisconsin.
The boys have had the help of a lab technician in writing several Peer-Reviewed Academic Papers. A summary of the findings will be published in Science magazine, in the upcoming January issue.
A flawless experimental design presented at the Mulbury Middle School science fair yielded the definitive results:
"We just stayed together in the same bathroom, one step apart, every time one of us had to fart. Of course, pooing wasn't counted." explained young Tom. "Then, when one of us smelt the fart, we marked down on a big piece of paper who smelt it first. Luckily, Mrs. Barns taught us how to make pie charts in math last week, so we knew how to present the data in a meaningful way".
Continued Robert: "Dad helped us make sure that the alpha values were OK and that P was less than or equal to 0.05. I don't know what that means, but it got us lots of points in our conclusion at the science fair." He added, "Thanks dad!"
After earning big marks at the local science fair, (but failing to make it to the regionals), the boy's project, presented on a red Bristol-board, was noticed by a local enterogastrologist. While he wishes to remain nameless, it is rumoured that his undergraduate students heard him remark that, "The boys stumbled across something I'd been hoping to prove for a long time." Despite certain ill-smelt feelings, the Dr. referenced the boy's project in the write-up of a similar experiment he later conducted with cats. This citation got the boys noticed by the local university, and has since sent them to a conference in Seattle and a cat farm in Wisconsin.
The boys have had the help of a lab technician in writing several Peer-Reviewed Academic Papers. A summary of the findings will be published in Science magazine, in the upcoming January issue.
