Gas-Mask Bra and Panda Poop

In this article dated Friday, October 02, 2009 on Fox News , I found a plethora of cute stories with social significance. The article is cleverly written and contains information about an annual event called the Ig Nobel awards. Scientists are rewarded for their research in such unusual topics as spoofed by the article, “Can't get milk from a cow? Try calling her Bessie or Buttercup.” The article goes on to describe why what sounds like a waste of time and money could actually be of some use economically and in some cases life saving like using a woman’s bra to cover the face in case of a poison gas attack.


I absolutely abhor the giving of grant money to spend on such frivolous research that seems pointless and wasteful of taxpayer money, so when I started reading this article I thought it would be more of the same. Instead what I found was a voice of reasoning that explained why these talented scientists have come up with some of the things they’ve invented or discovered that might actually be beneficial.


Why I thought the story would be pointless, was in the first case reported to be given an award was for “scientists who found that empty beer bottles are much better weapons in a bar brawl than full bottles”. Another was for a scientist who discovered bacteria in panda poop could reduce kitchen waste. And then there was the “researchers who found that dairy cows with names yield more milk than unnamed cows.” As I continued to read the article it carefully explained the process of each of the researched items and also gave the helpful implications of using the discoveries and surprisingly it seemed to make sense. The answers were simple, for example it was found that "The empty beer bottles were much sturdier than the full ones,"…. "However, although the empty bottles would therefore be better clubs, both full and empty bottles suffice in breaking the human skull." The researcher justified that the findings could be used by lawyers and judges to decide court cases where a beer bottle had been used as a weapon. And being nice to a herd of cows could make a big impact overall in milk production. Apparently affectionate cows give more milk.


Although the being nice to cows in order to get more milk production seems practical, my favorite award was given to the medical researcher in this article, who invented the bra that could convert to a gas mask in the event of a nuclear plant disaster or events such as the 9/ 11 terrorist attack, or for women caught in dust storms. The article reported “Dr. Elena Bodnar won for her bra that converts into a pair of gas masks — one for the wearer, the other for a friend.” "You have to be prepared all the time, at any place, at any moment, and practically every woman wears a bra," she said, noting that a bra cup, no matter what size, is the perfect shape to fit over the human mouth and nose.