Writer’s note: Before any of you try to beat us to the punchline, yes these people were literally sh**!ing bricks.Â
All of you BrickHeadz out there know how frustrating it can be to sort through a big pile of LEGO bricks, looking for one tiny, little piece you need to finish your build. It’s annoying. Although presumably not nearly as annoying or gross as searching through your own scat for a Minifigure head–something six people recently had to do for the sake of research and child safety.
This messy bit of research, which comes via Ars Technica, was published in The Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health and essentially aimed to figure out how long it would take for six adults to poop out LEGO Minifig heads. They found that the average time it took to digest and excrete the heads was 1.71 days, which is 5,000 years in Minifig time, we’re assuming.
The authors of the research, Andrew Tagg (of the University of Melbourne Medical School) et al. found that amongst their six test subjects, the shortest amount of time it took to excrete the LEGO heads was 1.14 days, while the longest was 3.04 days. The amount of time it took for the subjects to locate the heads in their own poop was referred to by the researchers as the Found and Retrieved Time, or FART. The qualitative aspects of the LEGO-laced logs was determined by the Stool Hardness and Transit score, or SHAT score. And how was all this information collected? By the subjects themselves, who had to sift through their own loose deuce and pluck out the heads.
The test subjects came from an internet community made up of pediatric hospital workers, which explains why these people would risk their colon health–and hand cleanliness–or the sake of this research. Toddlers eat just about anything, especially little bits of plastic, and it’s nice to know they won’t be harmed if they do. Although LEGO pieces can be a lot larger than Minifig heads….
What are your thoughts on this poop scoop? You ready to toss some Minifig heads back like popcorn now? Let us know in the comments!
Images: Barney Moss , Universal, Warner Bros.
