Farting pilots can cause airline disasters!

Via.

I am pleased to report the first in-depth scientific review of flatulence. It answers a number of questions, but the most important one is whether it’s okay to fart on a plane.

The answer: Yes!

It turns out that changes in air pressure at altitude actually do make you more flatulent. So instead of worrying about social embarrassment of passing gas, “just let it go.” From the article in the New Zealand Medical Journal:

“(Holding back) holds significant drawbacks for the individual, such as discomfort and even pain, bloating, dyspepsia (indigestion), pyrosis (heartburn) just to name but a few resulting abdominal symptoms. Moreover, problems resulting from the required concentration to maintain such control may even result in subsequent stress symptoms.”

What about up in the cockpit? That’s a bit tougher:

“On the one hand, if the pilot restrains a fart, all the drawbacks previously mentioned, including impaired concentration, may affect his abilities to control the plane. On the other hand, if he lets go of the fart, his co-pilot may be affected by its odour, which again reduces safety onboard the flight.”

(Oh, and this study also found one other thing: women's farts smell worse than men’s!)

Beware the Landside Upchuck!

You’re so spoiled.

When you travel, you get in a car with rubber wheels and custom shock-absorbers, and THEN you drive over smooth roads. Pitiful! 

You wouldn’t last a mile in the coaches of yesteryear. They had wooden/metal tires, useless shock absorbers, and the roads SUCKED!

So people got car sick (or “coach sick”?) all the time. They called this old school motion sickness: mal de mer sur la terre (landside upchuck).

That’s the subject of the above illustration, titled "The Cruel Effects of Interrupted Digestion." Taken from the 1826 book Inconvéniens d'un Voyage en Diligence (The Inconviences of a Stagecoach), it shows a lady on top of the coach barfing. The vomit reflects off passenger’s head and into a roadside beggar’s outstretched hat.

Yes, it’s a hat trick! Both that last joke and the above information are from BookTryst.

Gross Question of the Day!

Over at Slate.com, they have a feature called the Explainer. And each year, the Explainer receives questions that it can't (or won't!) answer. Here's my favorite from 2010:

By qmnonic

Why don't airplane bathrooms have windows? I've always thought it would be nice to gaze off into the wild blue yonder while relieving myself at 30,000 feet. It wouldn't be a privacy risk, because there are no peeping toms to catch a glimpse of you at that height. 

Good question! (Too bad there's no answer.)

Crop Dusting OR Flying the Smelly Skies

Some people use the term "crop dusting" as a way of saying passing gas or farting. I was reminded me of this while reading an article by David Sedaris in this week's New Yorker. 

He was writing about airline attendants having to deal with passengers who are jerks:

"You know how a plastic bottle will get all crinkly during a flight?" [the stewardess] asked. "Well, it happens to people too, to our insides. That's why we get all gassy...So what me and the other gals would sometimes do is fart while we walked up and down the aisle. No one could hear it because of the engine noise, but anyway, that's what we called 'crop dusting.'"

When I asked another flight attendant...how he dealt with a plane full of belligerent passengers, he said, "Oh, we have our ways. The next time you're flying and it comes time to land, listen closely as we make our final pass down the aisle."

"Pull my finger!"

Hmm, I might listen, but I'm not going to sniff the air! By the way, that painting of a butt is by Michelangelo, from the Sistine Chapel.

Anyway, Michelangelo rarely bathed, and almost NEVER took his shoes off. His assistant complained, "[He] has sometimes gone so long without taking his shoes off that then the skin came away, like a snake's, with the boots."