Comment Or maybe they're aping the BMJ (Score 3, Interesting) 725
The British Medical Journals do a spoofy article around Christmas every year, in which they pick an absurd subject and whomp up serious-looking studies on them. They do it at Christmas I guess because April 1st is just so obvious.
Examples include
"Longevity of screenwriters who win an academy award: longitudinal study" BMJ 2001;323:1491,
"Ice cream evoked headaches (ICE-H) study: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen" BMJ 2002;325:1445,
"How long did their hearts go on? A Titanic study" BMJ 2003;327:1457,
"The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute" BMJ 2005;331:1498.
This article would fit right in to that tradition.