Category:
Flatulence
The Leakeys are one of the most famous families in science.
The anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey are famous for their work at Olduvai Gorge, and
their son Richard is well-known as a conservationist.
Less well-known is
Richard's half-brother, Colin, who also went into science and became an expert on beans and flatulence.
Colin Leakey created a type of bean designed to produce less flatulence. He marketed these as "Prim beans" (because they were more prim and proper than ordinary beans), but they never sold well.
He also invented a device for measuring flatulence, which he called the Flatometer. He was granted British patent no. GB 2289222 for it.
More info:
Seed Sovereignty
Members of the
Heaven's Gate religious group developed their own peculiar terminology, including referring to flatulence as "poofoofus".
Info from former Heaven's Gate member 'sawyer':
Examples of new terms that accumulated over the years: Instead of Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven, it was "THE EVOLUTIONARY LEVEL ABOVE HUMAN" or "NEXT LEVEL," REDEFINED "EVOLUTION" that had nothing to do with Darwin's usage, saying instead that the Next Level was a next step up the evolutionary ladder from the Human Evolutionary Kingdom which was above the Animal Kingdom which was above the Plant Kingdom which was above the Mineral Kingdom...
A new member of the Next Level was a "YOUNGER MEMBER." They called reproductive organs, "PLUMBING." Clouds of light, chariots of fire, whirlwinds were "SPACECRAFTS." A woman's bra they called a "SLINGSHOT." A fart was a "POOFOOFUS" (that we needed to only release in the "BATH CHAMBER." We rested in the "REST CHAMBER." They talked about the changeover recorded as happening as a "twinkling of an eye" as a "METAMORPHOSIS" compared to that of the Caterpillar to a Butterfly. We did not eat, we "CONSUMED" and it wasn't food, it was "FUEL." The brain was a "COMPUTER." Meals were "EXPERIMENTS." A recipe was a "FORMULA." The houses we lived in were "CRAFTS" as if they were spacecrafts, but they did nothing to make anything look that way. A job was an "OUT OF CRAFT TASK." The kitchen was the "Nutri Lab." The laundry was the "Fiber Lab." The workshop was the "IMPRO LAB," impro standing for Improvements. The administrative team worked in "COM CENTER," where "com" stood for "communications." They said they came from "Headquarters" in deep space. A toilet was a "COMMODE." Feces was "SOLID WASTE" and urine, "LIQUID WASTE." The auto repair shop and the hospital were referred to as the "HORSE-PISTOL" as both our automobiles and VEHICLES were also considered to function and serve us as horses can be taught/trained to. Assigned watching the heavens at night was called "Night-watch." Our internal bakery was called the "YEAST LAB."
Some details from the 1986 case of Tom Morgan v. Randy Maresh:
Plaintiff alleges that the defendant has willfully and maliciously inflicted severe mental stress and humiliation on the plaintiff by conduct outrageous in the extreme by continually, intentionally and repeatedly 'passing gas' directed toward the defendant.
That for reasons unknown to plaintiff, defendant was hostile toward plaintiff and expressed his hostility by the conduct described herein.
That defendant would continually and repeatedly seek out plaintiff on the premises of Albertsons (the supermarket), while plaintiff was engaged in his employee duties. That defendant, after locating plaintiff, would position himself in the proximity of plaintiff so as to direct his 'gas' toward plaintiff, humiliating plaintiff and inflicting severe mental stress upon plaintiff.
As a direct and proximate result of said outrageous conduct, plaintiff suffered, and continues to suffer, emotional distress and humiliation...
Wherefore, plaintiff prays for judgment against defendant in the sum of $50,000 for general damages and for $50,000 punitive damages and for his costs and disbursements incurred herein.
The case was eventually dismissed.

Syracuse Post-Standard - Oct 17, 1986

Spokane Chronicle - Dec 14, 1987
I wonder if being named Miss Gas-O-Rama doomed Bobbie Amos to a lifetime of flatulence jokes.

Cocoa Tribune - July 9, 1962

Orlando Sentinel - July 11, 1962
Crepitus was allegedly the Roman god of flatulence. He was usually depicted as a young child farting.
However, he's only allegedly so because there's controversy about whether the Romans recognized such a god, or whether Crepitus was the creation of early Christians trying to satirize pagan beliefs.
According to Wikipedia, there are references to Crepitus in ancient texts, but only in Christian works, not pagan ones.

image source: POOP Project
A toy gun that uses fart gas to "fire a toy missile into space" was
patented by Michael Zanakis in 2000:
To operate the assembly, the operator places the inlet tube with its valve open adjacent his anal region from which a colonic gas is discharged. The piston is then withdrawn to a degree producing a negative pressure to inhale the gas into the combustion chamber to intermix with the air therein to create a combustible mixture. The ignitor is then activated to explode the mixture in the chamber and fire the missile into space.
Zanakis argued that his toy wasn't just amusing but also offered safety benefits, because using it was safer than lighting your farts on fire:
A recreational activity practiced by some individuals is ignition of one's own flatus. This is performed by using a lit match or candle, or a cigarette lighter. So widespread is this activity that there are web sites on the Internet devoted exclusively to explaining proper lighting techniques.
A major drawback of this popular practice is that it usually involves the hazardous coupling of fire, combustible gases and inebriated participants. Reports of serious burns to body parts are not uncommon, this being especially true when the participants remove their clothing...
In view of the foregoing, the main object of this invention is to provide a safe toy which exploits the combustible properties of flatus to fire a toy missile into space.
If someone farts in an operating room, will he/she contaminate the room with germs? Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki and microbiologist Luke Tennent of Australia together
devised an experiment to find out:
[Tennent] asked a colleague to break wind directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of 5 centimetres, first fully clothed, then with his trousers down. Then he observed what happened. Overnight, the second Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria that are usually found only in the gut and on the skin. But the flatus which had passed through clothing caused no bacteria to sprout, which suggests that clothing acts as a filter.
Another source (below) claims that the 'colleague' who supplied the farts was, in fact, an eight-year-old boy:

Sydney Morning Herald - July 16, 2001
Incidentally, Dr. Kruszelnicki has been mentioned before on WU. See
'falling cats'.
A toilet seat is never, ever going to resonate with "jewels."
Source.
Patented by Thomas Lloyd Hollister in 1939. He called it a “gas receptor.” Basically, it was a fart collection bag. From the patent:
This invention relates to a device for receiving and storing gas formed by the digestion of foods. An object of the invention is the provision of a device for collecting and storing gas formed in the alimentary tract of the body and for absorbing liquids from the gases. Another object of the invention is the provision of a device for collecting and storing gas formed in the digestive tract, said device being removably suspended from the body and provided with a nipple having shielded perforations to permit gases to enter a storage chamber.
“An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.”

Springfield News-Leader - Dec 6, 2006
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