Marriage, bacon, and the law, customarily in England

History of the Dunmow Flitch of Bacon Custom, a book by William Andrews, published in 1877, tells of the British custom involving married couples publicly swearing an oath about themselves, in pursuit of free bacon. “The Dunmow Flitch: bringing home the bacon,” written more recently, by a mildly-anonymous someone else, also tells some history of the […]

Techniques in Saliva Collection: Bacon Smell Rules, Lozenge Drools

Certain studies are tongue in cheek. This certain study is interested in the fluids between the tongue and cheek. Mouthwatering science abounds in the article, “New Techniques for Augmenting Saliva Collection: Bacon Rules and Lozenge Drools.” Hoping to find a method that increases the rate mouth fluids can be collected, researchers had volunteers’ saliva analyzed […]

Cured pork up the nose for riches, rather than for medical purposes

One hesitates to inquire whether the new bacon-scented lottery tickets offered by the state of New Hampshire were inspired in any way by news photos of the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study “Nasal Packing With Strips of Cured Pork as Treatment for Uncontrollable Epistaxis in a Patient with Glanzmann Thrombasthenia.” New Hampshire’s lottery offers this deal (and, on […]

He’s the “k”, and has great Erdos and Bacon numbers

“He is the ‘k’ in G. W. Peck, a pseudonym for a group of six mathematicians,” says Wikipedia, which goes on to say: Kleitman has coauthored at least six papers with Erdős, giving him an Erdős number of 1. He was a math advisor and extra for the film Good Will Hunting.[5] Since Minnie Driver of Good Will Hunting appeared in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon, Kleitman […]