Can farts spread disease? That's the question Mental Floss poses, and after having looked at a small bit of science, their conclusion: "If you're wearing pants, you should be fine." Actually, even if you are butt naked you should be fine, unless, perhaps, you're within five centimeters of another human.

Searching for an answer, Mental Floss dug up a 2014 Discovery article that describes an experiment that involved farts in petri dishes. As described by science author Karl Kruszelnicki on Discovery:

“I contacted Luke Tennent, a microbiologist in Canberra, and together we devised an experiment. He asked a colleague to break wind directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of 5 centimetres, first fully clothed, then with his trousers down. Then he observed what happened. Overnight, the second Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria that are usually found only in the gut and on the skin. But the flatus which had passed through clothing caused no bacteria to sprout, which suggests that clothing acts as a filter.

Our deduction is that the enteric zone in the second Petri dish was caused by the flatus itself, and the splatter ring around that was caused by the sheer velocity of the fart, which blew skin bacteria from the cheeks and blasted it onto the dish. It seems, therefore, that flatus can cause infection if the emitter is naked, but not if he or she is clothed..."

Cut to 2020 and the coronavirus, and Mental Floss says: "Earlier this year, a Beijing district office for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that pants should be an effective barrier against farts that might carry the novel coronavirus. Read the rest

I took a Shared Lyft home the other night, rather than waiting for the bus. There were two other passengers in the car when I got in — a woman in the backseat, and a man in the front. The man was dropped off first, about a mile from my own place. And as soon as he got out of the car, the inside filled up with one of the worst-smelling farts I've ever experienced in my life. I looked around the car, but neither the woman, nor the man driving, seemed to respond to this wretched scent.

So I tweeted about it.

Hi @Lyft how do I report the shared passenger on this ride who just let rip the hugest grossest fart right as he got out of the car

— This Is Not A Thom Dunn T-Shirt (@thomdunn) January 31, 2020

To be clear, I wasn't trying to be a narc; I was just a little buzzed, and I thought it was funny. But as the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with jokes on Twitter."

To their credit, Lyft responded. And to my surprise, they were surprisingly helpful.

Thank you for letting us know. We're still happy to look into this with the date and time of the ride and a description of the other rider. Please send us a DM with the phone number, email address, and full name associated with your Lyft account. We're happy to help! https://t.co/SXpdictw1A

— Ask Lyft (@AskLyft) January 31, 2020

We moved the conversation to DMs, and I shared some details on the ride. Read the rest

YouTube pranksters are taking credit for interrupting the Snookers Masters Finals with loud farting noises. The group, Trollstation, claims it wasn't a whoopee cushion making the sounds of flatulence but a "fart box" they planted in the arena earlier in the week.

The Guardian:

Stuart Bingham won the Masters 10-8 but one of the biggest days in the snooker calendar was briefly disrupted by an electronic “whoopee cushion” in the crowd...

...the perpetrator, who was quickly removed from the venue – but not before a number of fart noises had caused much mirth inside Alexandra Palace.

"I think it could be someone with a whoopee cushion," Dennis Taylor said on the BBC’s commentary. “Not very funny at all.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7gfiJrJS7u/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7hCC8upIvG/

screengrab via BBC Read the rest

Sean A. Sykes Jr. pleaded guilty this week to having possessed marijuana, heroin and cocaine with the intent to sell and of using a firearm in furtherance of a drug crime. It's a win for the Kansas City district attorney who, in 2017, charged 25-year-old Sykes with possession of drugs with intent to sell and of being a felon in possession of three firearms. Did I mention that two of the three guns were stolen? I think it's safe to say that Sykes is enthusiastic about his career.

Anyway, on to the good stuff.

Last year, when Sykes was being questioned by the cops for these crimes, his gas, presumably due to his nerves being shot after being arrested, was so bad that the investigating officer was forced to evacuate the interrogation room for fear of being overwhelmed by farts.

From the Kansas City Star:

On Sept. 1, Sykes was in a car that police searched and found a backpack that contained various drugs and two handguns. One of the guns, a .357 Magnum, had been reported stolen out of a car in Independence a few days earlier, according to the documents.

In his report about the interview, the detective wrote that when asked about his address, “Mr. Sykes leaned to one side of his chair and released a loud fart before answering with the address.”

“Mr. Sykes continued to be flatulent and I ended the interview,” the detective wrote.

Charges were not filed at that time.

Then on Nov.

Read the rest

Pew! Liquid Ass prank spray will make a room smell like farts, really foul smelling ones. According to people who have bought and used it, it's strong and it will make you gag. But it also has another use, a more noble one:

Researchers, hospitals, and programs designed to train medical professionals routinely order Liquid Ass. The stench so realistically mimics the human colon, it’s the perfect training tool to teach medical responders how to maintain focus and professional demeanor in the midst of a truly overwhelming smell. And because the stench is universally offensive, psychologists have found it’s the perfect tool for studying the effects of disgust on all sorts of human behavior, from political decision-making to health care choices.

...Kata Conde, an assistant nursing professor at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Kansas, started buying Liquid Ass for the simulation lab she runs for her students. It’s the only product she’s found that accurately captures the smells that come from our bowels, and she would know: she had a 30-year career as a nurse before becoming an instructor. Conde now uses Liquid Ass in teaching scenarios in which a patient has soiled themselves while trying to get out of a hospital bed, complete with chocolate icing to set the scene. It’s also good for practicing bowel surgeries, like colostomies, where surgeons divert some of the large intestine to a new hole in the abdomen.

“The smell hits you like a huge wall,” she says. “It’s something people react to when they first experience it.

Read the rest

A room full of young children got the opportunity to ask former Oasis lead singer Liam Gallagher nearly anything they wanted.

They quizzed him with questions like, "What's your favorite Disney movie?" (Finding Nemo) and "What instruments do you play?"(none).

When one boy called him "naughty," Liam wasted no time bringing up his estranged brother Noel, calling him "naughty."

It just got more beautifully awkward from there when one rosy-cheeked boy asked the hard-hitting question on everyone's mind, "What's your favorite fart?" (loud ones). Gallagher's sage advice for the young'uns: "If you wanna be a rock star, look out the window, stare at the clouds and do loud farts."

Gallagher is currently on a worldwide tour for his hit solo album, As You Were.

(COS) Read the rest

YouTuber Barb Ackue (get it?) was kind enough to upload an important moment in US history: Commander John Young complaining about flatulence while Apollo 16 was on the lunar surface. After working through some technical issues, Young says: Read the rest

Port St. Lucie, Florida police arrested Dawn Meikle after she allegedly attacked her husband, Donald Fitzroy Meikle, for farting too much in bed. When he broke wind, she apparently elbowed him and then kicked him out of their bed. After she allowed him to return, he again passed gas, spurring her to kick and hit him.

According to CBS12, Donald Fitzroy Meikle "said he held his wife for his own safety. During the struggle, she suffered a broken lip and he suffered a lot of scratches across his chest." Police stated she also sprayed pepper spray to, er, block him from getting to the bathroom? Read the rest

Louann Clem of Trenton, New Jersey, is suing her and her husband Rich's former employee, Case Pork Roll Co., claiming that he was fired for farting too much. Both the Clems complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), but her case was dismissed so she decided to sue while her husband's EEOC complaint is pending. According to the suit, Rich Clem had gastric bypass surgery that led to “extreme gas and uncontrollable diarrhea.” That was when the owner of the company, Thomas Dolan, began harassing them, she says. Some of Dolan's alleged comments that Louiann Clem references in the lawsuit:

“We have to do something about Rich. This can’t go on.”

“Why is Rich having these side effects?”

“Is Rich following his doctor’s recommendations?”

“We can’t run an office and have visitors with the odor in the office.”

“Tell Rich that we are getting complaints from visitors who have problems with the odors.”

The company's owner claims the Clems weren't fired but rather quit after refusing to take a pay cut when the company fell on hard times.

(MyCentralJersey.com) Read the rest

The creative team that brought you The Princess Who Saved Herself earlier this year is back with another unconventional children's book.

This video about the world's largest whoopie cushion is all about the cat. Read the rest

I have two kids, so like all parents, I've been through some gross moments. Still, the all-natural baby decongestant Nosefrida the snotsucker brings out the giggling 15 year old in me. The picture tells the story: mom holds baby down like a prisoner and with one end of the tube in her mouth (or in my family, Dad), and the chamber tip firmly pressed onto bambino's schnozz, and snot is sucked. "Of course" product devotees will tell you, "it doesn't go up the tube, it gets captured in the chamber!!" But still. But still. Read the rest

And now: The science of farting. (via Hannah Waters) Read the rest