David Cohen's trawl of the News of the Weird is a cracking place to mock some of the odder areas of global academic research:
For example, in Japan, Nagasaki University, researchers have zeroed in on the gene for ear wax. Their conclusion: Africans' and Europeans' ear wax tends to be wetter; among East Asians it*s drier; and most other Asians' wax is about midway between. This would tend to make East Asians the sexiest people of all, note the researchers, all of whom coincidentally happen to be East Asians.
At Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, and another 16 North American zoos, primatologists have been documenting menopause in gorillas, in order to show that not just female humans experience menopause.
At Ohio State University, researchers looking to determine
whether non-humans experience seasonal affective disorder are studying
whether hamsters are happy or
depressed during the current winter season. The research appears in the
latest issue of Psychoneuroendocrinology. Obviously.
Readers, of course, are always welcome to submit their own notable sightings.
