Knives made from frozen human feces
The non-fiction book Shadows in the Sun by Wade Davis contains the following passage:
This caught the attention of some archaeologists who decided to test if a knife made from human feces would actually be strong enough to cut through muscle and tendons. They published their results in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The researchers paid close attention to detail. For instance:
However, the results were disappointing: "the knife-edge simply melted upon contact, leaving streaks of fecal matter."
Conclusion: the story of the fecal knife was an urban legend.
There is a well known account of an old Inuit man who refused to move into a settlement. Over the objections of his family, he made plans to stay on the ice. To stop him, they took away all of his tools. So in the midst of a winter gale, he stepped out of their igloo, defecated, and honed the feces into a frozen blade, which he sharpened with a spray of saliva. With the knife he killed a dog. Using its rib cage as a sled and its hide to harness another dog, he disappeared into the darkness.
This caught the attention of some archaeologists who decided to test if a knife made from human feces would actually be strong enough to cut through muscle and tendons. They published their results in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The researchers paid close attention to detail. For instance:
In order to procure the necessary raw materials for knife production, one of us went on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which is consistent with an arctic diet, for eight days.
However, the results were disappointing: "the knife-edge simply melted upon contact, leaving streaks of fecal matter."
Conclusion: the story of the fecal knife was an urban legend.
Comments
Feces knife, melts in your hand not in....
Sorry but it just popped into my mind. 😉
Sorry but it just popped into my mind. 😉
Posted by Mike on 03/25/22 at 01:19 PM
They won the 2020 Materials Science Ignobel Prize for this: https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2020
Apparently, that was the only Ignobel Prize for Materials Science in history.
Apparently, that was the only Ignobel Prize for Materials Science in history.
Posted by René Bos on 03/25/22 at 01:41 PM
I thought icy BM's were pretty dangerous.
Posted by Dr. Fian on 03/25/22 at 06:04 PM
This knife is shit. Literally.
Posted by Yudith on 03/27/22 at 08:05 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Category: Science | Experiments | Excrement