Wednesday 11 August 2010

Eating carrots will let you see in the dark!

I have been reading this FANTASTIC book called Bad Science



Its written by a very entertaining columinst for The Guardian newspaper in England, well versed and accessible, it casts a bright light on the dark spots of medical science and research that certain people and companies would rather you didn't see.

If you are too cheap to spill for the book but still want a taste of this excellent insight into the world of research myth and fact, he does have his own website that you can peruse and is kept regularly up to date.

The Bad Science website!

Anyway! lol, the reason I decided to write about this is because of an intriguing little fact buried away in the book as an annecdote which I found highly entertaining.

We are all familiar with old wives tales. Things that apparently have no logical sense behind them but people swear by. One of these was the things parents told their kids to get them to eat their vegetables! "Eat your carrots up and you will be able to see in the dark"

If you ever wondered where these things come from, in his book he tells you.

It was a story invented by the British in the 1st World War and spread to the Germans to hide the invention of radar from them. Their explanation for the accuracy of the targetting at night was, our pilots were eating lots of carrots.

I thought that was brilliant!

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