British Beer

Having just been out for a (late beer at 10pm ish) (Plough and Harrow) after a meeting,  on returning home I was very taken by a post on Facebook.about our brewing heritage.
Some booze in supermarkets may be too cheap. There is no end of Larger at rock bottom prices.On the other hand a decent bottle of wine has become very expensive. Why are we not encouraging more sensible drinking in our local Public Houses? Places where drinking is regulated by a licensee. If the Landlord of a Pub sees someone too intoxicated he can refuse to to serve them.I enjoy My beer, cider and wine, and am not just out to get drunk. A pub is a place where people socialise.We have lots of social intercourse.
Anyway back to the Facebook post. Have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QANARINMQzc produced by the Society of Independent Brewers.

The other peace prize

Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

Abstract

Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. If the bottles break, they may give rise to sharp trauma. However, if the bottles remain intact, they may cause blunt injuries. In order to investigate whether full or empty standard half-litre beer bottles are sturdier and if the necessary breaking energy surpasses the minimum fracture-threshold of the human skull, we tested the fracture properties of such beer bottles in a drop-tower.

Full bottles broke at 30 J impact energy, empty bottles at 40 J. These breaking energies surpass the minimum fracture-threshold of the human neurocranium. Beer bottles may therefore fracture the human skull and therefore serve as dangerous instruments in a physical dispute.

Keywords: Breaking energy threshold; Beer bottles; Blunt head trauma

Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine

Also answers to:

• Why don't pregnant women topple over?
• Do cows notice kindness?
• Does cracking your knuckles bring on arthritis?
• Is there more than one use for a bra?

The Ig Nobels by the Annals of Improbable Research.

Best of the Ig Nobel prizes 2009 - See New Scientist

I think, that better the full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.

But the further research into the dropping properties of toast is very instructive.