How much fund were wasted in this study? That should be the outrage. A cure for cancer is worth the mony, to build a sand castle? Nope.

they jsut keep adding to the useless facts list..

Chips - I remember the "buttered bread" tests; they were hilarious .

i also remember those tests, i even remember one of the old theories:

what powers UFO's?
Cats and toast, strap the toast to the back of the cat, buttered side up, naturally, the cat wants to land up, but so does the toast, so just before it hits, the cat/toast combination hovers, thus giving the UFO the a-grav properties.
and the humming? thats just the sound of hundreds of purring cats...

that realy cracked me up when i read it, considering it was all a case of 'Torque Iduced Rotation'...

I remember that joke about the cats as well. It was a classic in its day, and I remember that some people couldn't tell if we were being facetious or not when telling them the joke .

Some of this is done by students who need to do something for their thesis or final year project. It needs to be original to avoid plagiarism and sometimes they turn to ridiculous ideas.
Even so, I've heard of successful applications of stuff a bit like this. Like the engineering student who made a motorised pogo-stick as a final year project and in doing so had to design a small petrol powered compressor which other businesses have taken an interest in and he has been able to patent it.

They did a study years ago in the US and spent $60,000 to learn why people like Big Macs. Wouldn't it be cheaper to just pay a couple of people minimum wage to take an opinion poll?

Edited by - Finalday on 5/29/2004 9:07:01 AM

Research is VERY expensive depending upon how you carry it out. A few PhD students are fairly cheap to use, but the labs, equipment, support, technicians, bills, buildings bills and more still cost money. PhD students don't get "paid" - but get grants that literally pay for food and lodging - so they are cheap. Proper research in special labs will cost a fortune - as they need to ensure controlled constant environments for everything. Sterile surfaces and more like it. Results need to be reproduceable, need to check what happens with variations with things (for the tea - i bet they tested sugar levels in the tea, as well as milk and more). They get VERY anal retentive about the slightest details. You will also need to write LOTS of results down, noting EVERYTHING that goes on, as well as presenting it all in a fashion.

Sure - i coulda done it for about 10 quid. However, would my results have stood as proof to the scientific community of the world?? Don't be stupid. They have to keep standards for the results to be credible and believable - otherwise its just a little bit of fun isn't it?

To be honest, i am SURE that buttered toast cost around 200,000 pounds to get to the results. It took months for them to get there, as research really is a pain in the butt with its regulations, standards and then showing it all afterwards. Others have to be able to reproduce what you have done to prove it as well.

Generally some research use PhD students in order to start the research off - they do most of the work, narrowing down their results until they get the desired one. They are cheap, and they don't need everything to be perfect. Then they will publish their results for their PhD, however, research will continue into what they found, and that is where the more "Formal" parts take over (I think - not sure). At this point they bring in all the important details taking, sterile stuff, special equipment and more.

We were fabricating a new type of Blood Sugar testing method in our labs. The lab wasn't clean, the equipment was basic, the whole thing was low budget (we used a normal inkjet printer and ink cartridges). In formal conditions they would have their own cartridges, however, we drilled holes in the top, emptied the ink out, washed them with LOTS of water, drained the water through the nozzles on the "print head" and more. It was then back into the printer to print onto strips of electrodes (using a "word" document that had a thick black line in it ot print from). To line the print area up - we printed the blackstrips onto paper before changing the cartridges, and then stuck the strips of electrodse over the black lines) The whole thing was fasinating - and it went on for months.

Just think though - inkjet cartridges for a 640 deskjet printer? Cheap and cheerful. STuck onto paper to print? Then taken off of that? Combine this with the fact we used a enzyme that costs more per gram than gold, and we also used Electron Micrsocopes (coats sample to test in gold) to check if crystals formed on the electrodes (impaired the reading). Pretty amusing that we used machines that cost millions to test something we whacked out on a 640C deskjet printer huh?

Edited by - Chips on 5/29/2004 12:19:26 PM

Keep in mind that cancer is over 100 different diseases, each one as different as the next. We should really focus our reasources. Why try to cure diabetes, cancer, AIDS, polio, malaria, etc all at once? We must focus on one at a time, not on cures, but vaccines. Think about it, how did we deal with smallpox? We got an effective vaccine and gave it to everyone. Now, smallpox is gone. A HIV vaccine (a remote possibility since it attacks the imune system) would help more than any cure to AIDS could ever do. We could irradicate, not live with, the disease. And the money to these groups is there's to spend as they like. You disagree with what they're doing? Don't contribute to them. --- VH16