American physicists spend time (and money) figuring out how to eliminate urine ‘splashback’

These lads are well on their way to a Nobel Piss Prize…

A group of physicists, or pissicists as we're going to call them, from ‘The Splash Lab’ at Brigham Young University, Utah, have been studying the science behind ‘splashback’ and they’ve uncovered some truths that may save you some embarrassment the next time you’re wearing tan colour khakis and you badly need to pee. Prof Tadd Truscott and Randy Hurd are the two lead pissicists behind the study and they’ve created a video to help explain their findings. http://youtu.be/UgOx7zPtsaM "In response to harsh and repeated criticisms from our mothers and several failed relationships with women, we present the splash dynamics of a simulated human male urine stream," reads their conference abstract, according to the BBC. Apparently, the best plan of attack when you’re at a urinal is to stand nice and close in order to avoid the phenomenon known as Plateau-Rayleigh instability, which sees a falling stream of liquid breaking up into droplets. While it might sound like the lads are just taking the piss - and the research money too - they’re actually looking for a way to reduce bacteria build up in toilets and this is only the first step in a long, and presumably smelly, journey. At least they can always waste some time on this urinal video game system. Via BBC