Saved From The Skip

Special report from our Science Correspondent, Italo Dobull

Fascinating thing, science.

Let me give you an example. This week, a team of researchers at... well, I'll be damned... Cardiff University discovered that what your granny used to tell you about keeping warm in winter was actually true.
You are much less likely to catch a cold if you cover up warmly, than if you go prancing around butt-naked in below-freezing temperatures.
Funny you should say that: I was thinking exactly the same thing. Where on earth would we all be if it wasn't for science nowadays?
But how, you might be asking, did these researchers come up with such an extraordinary discovery?
Simple. They conducted an experiment, in which a group of 90 people (let's call it "Group A") spent 20 minutes dangling their bare feet in bowls filled with ice-cold water.
Meanwhile, a control group of 90 people (let's call it "Group A-146920") spent 20 minutes dangling their bare feet in bowls which were not filled with ice-cold water.
Later, the scientists observed how 29 per cent of Group A caught a cold within five hours, whereas the corresponding statistic for Group A-146920 was only nine per cent. (Oh, and in case you don't believe me, they published these results in Family Practice magazine.)
Conclusion? Hey presto! You are much more likely to catch a cold when you are... um... cold.

Wait, it gets better. You see, there may be an alternative reason for this phenomenon. According to a certain Professor Eccles - presumably, no relation to the Goon Show character of the same name - it might have been because they left their noses uncovered.
You see, Prof Eccles has just discovered a remarkable fact about noses: they're colder on the inside in winter than in summer.

How strange. And there I was, thinking that the temperature inside one's nostrils and the temperature outside were inversely proportional to one another...
Right. That's all from Skip Science this week. Except to say that, I too, have made an important discovery this week.
It's not such a long way to Tipperary after all. Not, at least, if you start your journey from Limerick...

Gesundheit.