plenty of debate about the nobel prizes...

...but these are the nobel prizes that have been outside of the circle of debate recently. well worth a read!

my personal favourite is the research that determined whether it is better to be hit over the head with a full or empty bottle of beer. or, as is the formal title of the research, "are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?" i didn't have the login, so i couldn't read the full conclusions, but an abstract which serves as an intro is as follows:

"beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. if the bottles break, they may give rise to sharp trauma. however, if the bottles remain intact, they may cause blunt injuries. in order to investigate whether full or empty standard half-litre beer bottles are sturdier and if the necessary breaking energy surpasses the minimum fracture-threshold of the human skull, we tested the fracture properties of such beer bottles in a drop-tower.

full bottles broke at 30 j impact energy, empty bottles at 40 j. these breaking energies surpass the minimum fracture-threshold of the human neurocranium. beer bottles may therefore fracture the human skull and therefore serve as dangerous instruments in a physical dispute."

did you hear that?

plenty of other interesting and life changing discoveries there (ie the bra that turns into a gas mask) and well worth a read. as it says, it first makes you laugh, it then makes you think. also, the bbc articles from the past are a good resource...!