You might recall the scene in the 1983 movie A Christmas Story where a young boy puts his tongue on a frozen metal pole and becomes stuck. This has been a dare among kids for as long as anyone can remember, and is called "tundra tongue." Norwegian graduate student Anders Hagen Jarmund remembers when he did it, along with many of his friends. It was such a common experience that Norway outlawed bare metal on playgrounds in 1998.Jarmund turned his experience into a scientific study that resulted in two papers. One was a review of the literature abut such cases. They found newspaper stories of tundra tongue going back to 1845, with cases ranging from the mundane to the terrifying, and the various methods used to get tongues un-stuck. The second paper came from an experiment to determine what happens when a tongue comes in contact with frozen metal. What's the most likely temperature to induce freezing? How much force does it take to detach it? And how much damage is done? You'll be glad to know that they didn't use their own tongues, or anyone else's. They used tongues from recently-slaughtered pigs. Read what they found at Ars Technica. -via Metafilter
Scientists Publish Formal Study on "Tundra Tongue" — The Childhood Dare of Licking Frozen Metal Poles
🌀 Absolutely Bonkers
“A Norwegian graduate student was so haunted by childhood memories of getting his tongue stuck to a frozen metal pole that he turned the trauma into two peer-reviewed scientific papers. The research formally examines "tundra tongue" — the physics of why wet tongues bond to freezing metal — tracing documented cases all the way back to 1845. Experiments were conducted using pig tongues, because science is thorough like that.”
Why It's Weird
Some stories exist in a category all their own, defying easy explanation or categorization. While the weirdness score is more modest, the story still offers a fascinating glimpse into life's unexpected moments.
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