[Mb-civic] Fine--But What Happens to My Socks?

[Jim Burns]

SCIENCE
BY Edward Willett
 
The case of the disappearing teaspoons
 
I don't often mention politics in my science column, but I feel it is
urgent to bring to the attention of all candidates a new field of
research in which Australia has taken the lead and in which Canada, I
feel, could make important contributions.
 
I'm speaking, of course, of the study of disappearing teaspoons.
 
In the December 24-31 issue of the British Medical Journal, Megan S. C.
Lim, Margaret E. Hellard and Campbell K. Aitken, scientists at the
Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in
Melbourne, Australia, set out to answer that age-old question "Where
have all the bloody teaspoons gone?"
 
Inspired by their failure to find any teaspoons in their tearoom in
January of 2004, the authors began their research with a pilot study,
purchasing 32 plain stainless steel teaspoons and numbering them with
red nail polish on the undersides of the handles. The Burnet Institute
has eight tearooms, four used mainly by the staff of specific programs,
and four that are communal. The researchers put 16 teaspoons in the
program-linked tearooms and 16 in the communal tearooms, and checked
their distribution throughout the Institute on a weekly basis for five
months.
 
Then they expanded their research, purchasing a further 54 stainless
steel teaspoons and 16 higher-quality teaspoons, which were also
distributed to the tearooms, with a higher proportion going to those
rooms which had suffered the highest teaspoon losses in the pilot study.
 
After five more months of teaspoon tracking, they revealed their
research to the staff, and asked them to return or anonymously report
any teaspoons whose whereabouts they might know. They also had staff
members complete a brief anonymous questionnaire dealing with their
attitudes toward (and knowledge of) teaspoons and teaspoon theft.
 
In those five months, 56—80 percent—of the 70 teaspoons disappeared.
The spoons' half-life—the time it took half of the teaspoons to
permanently disappear—was 81 days. The higher-quality teaspoons didn't
disappear any faster than the lower-quality ones, but once a teaspoon
made its way to a common room, it was likely to disappear more quickly
(half-life 42 days) than it was from a program-linked room (half-life 77
days).
 
The rate of teaspoon loss was 0.99 spoon per 100 teaspoon-days, or, for
the Burnet Institute, which employs 140 people, approximately 2.58
teaspoons per person per 100 teaspoon-years. Maintaining a teaspoon
density of one spoon for every two people would require the Institute to
purchase 252.4 teaspoons every year—at a not-insignificant cost of
$100 Australian.
 
Although five potentially lost teaspoons were recovered after the study
was revealed, no one admitted permanently removing a teaspoon from the
institute.
 
The study's authors put forward three theories as to why teaspoons
disappear. One is "the tragedy of the commons." An individual may
logically decide that the improvement to his own efficiency from his
monopoly of a teaspoon outweighs the miniscule loss to the efficiency of
the office as a whole from the loss of a single teaspoon—but if enough
individuals make that same decision, the number of teaspoons available
for common use quickly degrades.
 
The second theory the authors put forward is that unobserved spoons are
able to slip away through space to a world inhabited by spoon
life-forms, "where they enjoy a uniquely spoonoid lifestyle, responding
to highly spoon-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the spoon
equivalent of the good life."
 
Their third theory is that disappearing teaspoons are an example of
"counterphenomenological resistentialism," a.k.a. "things are against
us." This is the notion that inanimate objects have a natural antipathy
toward human, and that therefore we ultimately have no control over
them. Increasingly, in fact, they control us. (Based on my own
experiences with inanimate objects, I tend to think this theory is the
most likely.)
 
Noting that teaspoons are an essential part of office life; that their
follow-up questionnaire revealed a high level of dissatisfaction with
teaspoon coverage among workers at the Institute; and that the cost of
maintaining a working teaspoon population is not inconsiderable, the
authors recommend that institutes consider designs that minimize the
risk of teaspoon loss (specifically, more program-linked and fewer
common tearooms).
 
"Finally," they write, "we suggest that the development of effective
control measures against the loss of teaspoons should be a priority on
national research agendas."
 
Are we in Canada going to let Australia get ahead of us in this crucial
area of scientific research? 
 
Candidates? We await your positions on this matter of critical
importance.
 
Edward Willett is a freelance writer in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
E-mail comments or questions to ewillett at sasktel.net. Ed's website is
www.edwardwillett.com, and his blog is at edwardwillett.blogspot.com.
Ed's latest novel is the exciting science-fiction adventure Lost in
Translation (Five Star, ISBN 1594143056 ); his latest non-fiction
book is Genetics Demystified (McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0071459308).