MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s The Best Way To Remove A Bandage?
Anytime something unpleasant needs to be done, someone will ultimately say, “Okay…better just go ahead & rip off the Band-Aid”, as the traditional belief is that it’s better to just do the unpleasant thing quickly to get it over with. It could be anything that could bring about some sort of physical or emotional pain. But is quickly ripping off an actual bandage really the best method?
Well, in reality…yes (at least, according to one study)!
Research published in The Medical Journal of Australia saw 65 James Cook University students in Queensland recruited to examine which approach would be the least painful: removing a bandage quickly or slowly. They used one of two methods, then assessed their discomfort levels on an 11-point pain scale (0 for no pain at all, 11 for the greatest amount of pain). Those who ripped the bandage off quickly reported an average 0.92 pain score. Those who peeled slowly over a 2-second time frame gave that process an average score of 1.58. So, their conclusion: it actually IS better to just rip off the bandage.
Researchers tried the bandages on 3 different sites: the hand, the shoulder, and the ankle, while also assessing each site for body hair. Turned out that the body part didn’t matter, but those with less body hair tended to report less discomfort, as did people who brought with them a preconceived notion that the slow removal process would be more painful than just ripping the bandage off quickly.
There were some variables that the study couldn’t account for, like skin tenderness as the result of a wound or the varying adhesive strengths of different bandage types (though, for the record the study used Band-Aid brand). Ideally, the best bandage would be one with a glue that sticks to skin but offers less resistance upon removal, and some researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston announced last year that they were making progress toward making that happen. But for now, it’s better to just rip off the bandage.
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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s The Meaning Behind “4/20”?
Weed is coming to Maryland on July 1st, following last year’s vote to legalize cannabis when 67.2% of our fellow citizens decided to make left-handed cigarettes legal. But even if you’re not a marijuana enthusiast, you’re still probably aware that April 20, or 4/20, is the unofficial holiday for those who partake. It’s a day when pot smokers around the world come together to, well, smoke pot. But why the code 420?
Well, there are a lot of theories as to why that particular number was chosen, but most of them are wrong. You may have heard that 420 is police code for possession, or maybe it’s the penal code for marijuana use. But neither of those are true. There was a California Senate Bill 420 that referred to the use of medical marijuana, but that bill was named for the code, not the other way around.
As far as anyone can tell, the phrase started with a group of high school students back in 1971, when a bunch of kids at San Rafael High School in California got in the habit of meeting at 4:20pm to smoke weed after school. When they’d see each other in the hallways during the day, their shorthand was “420 Louis,” meaning, “Let’s meet at the Louis Pasteur statue at 4:20 to smoke.”
Somehow, the phrase caught on, and when the Grateful Dead eventually picked it up, “420” spread throughout the greater cannabis community like wildfire in a grow house. What began as a silly code shared between classes is now a worldwide event for smokers & legalization activists. Which isn’t really a bad accomplishment for a bunch of high school stoners, when you think of it!
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