Ig Nobel-winning scratch ‘n sniff, and nuclear power
plant safety
Marc Abrahams in Improbable Research
In Ig Nobel Prize-winning
invention is now being used, insistently, to help protect nuclear power plants.
The 1993 Ig Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to James Campbell and
Gaines Campbell of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, dedicated deliverers of
fragrance, for inventing scent strips [also known as "scratch 'n
sniff" strips], the odious method by which perfume is applied to magazine
pages.
On February 28, 2014, Erin Ailworth reported in the Boston Globe:
A Pilgrim Nuclear
Power Station [in Plymouth, MA] control room operator didn’t pass the smell test last year. The
operator couldn’t even get one.
The exam is regularly
given to Pilgrim employees — via scratch-and-sniff cards — to make sure they
can smell problems such as natural gas leaks, smoking equipment, or fire. But
in January 2012, one worker reported that a contract medical assistant hadn’t administered
the test during a routine physical. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
investigated. Its findings, released Wednesday, opened a window on the
olfactory rules governing the nation’s nuclear facilities….
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