Help Contribute to a Scent-free Workplace

I was lamenting the nightmare that is Christmas shopping when I was sent a link to a great potential gift: Flat-D or flatulence deodorizer. It's as though it was designed specifically for my family! The Flat-D is piece of cloth worn inside your undergarment containing activated charcoal. From the website:

Activated charcoal cloth was originally developed by the British Chemical Defense Establishment as a highly efficient filter medium for protection against nerve gas and other highly toxic vapors that might be used in chemical warfare.

Protection against toxic vapors? Sounds like the perfect solution to flatus odor. But does it work? The gasses responsible for malodorous farts are mainly - but not exclusively - sulfur compounds, which should readily adsorb to the activated charcoal, but it's been shown that ingesting charcoal is ineffective (and probably doesn't taste great either). Charcoal textiles, on the other hand, can reduce the escape of sulfur compounds significantly - full briefs capturing virtually all of it, and pads like the Flat-D up to 77% effective (charcoal seat cushions don't help at all). The best part is the Flat-D, like other charcoal textiles, is washable and reusable.

If roasted chestnuts, egg nog and other holiday cheer threaten to turn your holiday festivities into the eleven pipers piping, this may be for you.

"Remember you can hide the sound of a fart by making a louder noise, but you cannot hide the odor of flatulence."

Number 1 or Number 2?

We've all heard of the Richter scale, used to measure earthquake intensity. Fewer may be familiar with the Beaufort Scale of wind force. In 1982, the 14th edition of the Merck Manual introduced a scale to measure a different kind of wind: flatulence. The Merck Flatulence Scale describes 4 familiar categories of fart, including the famous "silent but deadly" (aka 'slider' or crowded elevator type). I couldn't find the scale in my 17th edition of the book, but it's still found on the Merck website. If that wasn't scatalogical enough, there's also the Bristol Stool Scale, used to categorize the more solid (but not always!) releases from your backside. Now next time you go for a number 2 you'll know if it's a true 2.