"The
response to our request has been amazing," Dr Karl Kruszelnicki told
listeners to the Dr Karl show on the Triple J radio network in New South Wales.
"Over 1,500 people have already logged onto our website, and their data is
bringing us closer each day to a better understanding of the lint-bearing
proclivities of the human navel."
Dr Kruszelnicki, the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at the University of Sydney, is
currently running the largest ever scientific investigation into the mysterious
attraction between fluff and navels. "We are trying to work out what causes
the lint, and why it is always blue. We think it is mainly fibres coming off
clothing, but why does it end up in the belly button? It looks likely that it is
the hairs on your belly and groin that pass the fibres along until they finally
arrive in the navel. One brave listener actually shaved his belly button, and
his collection of lint promptly dropped to zero. But when the hair began to grow
back, the lint returned. The most disturbing report we've had was from a woman
who wanted to bare her midriff in public, so she cleaned her navel first. She
washed it, then scrubbed it using her brother's electric toothbrush, and guess
what? Her brother got a fungal infection in his mouth." (The
Australian [supplement The Age], 10/00.)
