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January 05, 2006

On Poop

The BBC reports on alternative weapons investigated by the DoD back in 1994. These include: a bomb to make enemies gay, a bomb to make enemy combatants attractive to rats, a chemical to identify the enemy using bad breath and a chemical to make skin overly sensitive to sunshine.

I believe these were all also rejected mcguffins from the 6th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Also "researchers pondered a 'Who? Me?' bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks." I'd assumed this meant stimulate flatulence. But now I'm thinking the bomb merely lays down farty cloud which isn't nearly as cool and is, in fact, just a stink bomb.

Apparently this idea had other problems. Quoth the Beeb: "Researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because 'people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis.'"

The most important question raised by this report is, therefore, what the hell is going on with the British spelling of fecal?

3 comments:

Dgcopter said...

Well, considering that the Latin origin of "feces" is "faeces", the question really is: what the hell is going on with the American spelling of faecal?

Sorry, I couldn't resist being an English major smartass.

ewblumen said...

here's a little follow-up for ya ...

http://www.sunshine-project.org/incapacitants/jnlwdpdf/wpafbchem.pdf

i heard about this on the radio about a year ago, and being the dork that i am, scoured the internet for something else on it. enjoy!

goldman said...

That document is awesome. I can't believe someone typed that up and turned it in.