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Few people stop to think much about it when they fart. Unless ithappens on a crowded elevator,then everyone thinks about it.

You may not have pondered the fact that there are over 400different kinds of gas in one human fart, and Japanese of course areno exception. Japanese routinely let them rip to the tune of 80million litres of fart gas every day of the year. I haven`t evenincluded hot air bags like Tokyo Governor Ishihara either! If allthe people in the world could besynchronized via the internet to buff on cue, they would emit 4.2billion litres of butt gas,and that would fill 3.5 Tokyo Domes. Not a pretty picture I know.Just think of the Dome`smaintenance staff!

I have often thought that my friend Doug`s expellations wereparticularly putrid, but no! Accordingto research, Japanese young women expel especially smelly ones thesedays due to constipation. Halfof the young women of Japan are afflicted. Doctors point to dietingas the culprit in this case. Dietingleads to a loss of muscle tissue in general, and loose stomachmuscles in particular, which in turn leadsto constipation, and farts that would make even Doug blush!

Help you gasp! I`m dating a Japanese woman, what should I do? Isthere anything that can be done,Kev? Unfortunately, I am at a loss and it isn`t only dieting thatmake some elevators smell likeKawasaki. It is also because the Western diet has found popularityamong Japanese palets.Simply put, Japanese are eating more meat.

Indeed, the fast paced lifestyle of Japan leads to increasedstress, and worsens one`s intestinalcondition. Perhaps because of this busy lifestyle, people don`thave as much time to exercise. Withoutregular exercise, we aren`t regular, and our bowels don`t movesmoothly (extend and shrink well--as oneTokyo doctor, a proctologist I presume, was quoted as saying).

One shocking part of the study revealed that if you try toprevent a fart, it will actually get youin more trouble and could affect your love life! If you refuse tofluff one (as my Uncle Stan used to say),then the gas is absorbed into your blood and travels to your lungs.Then it comes out of your mouth,smelling just as terrible. Let one rip before you exchange lipswith your special someone I like to say.It is a shame when couples break up over mouth farts. It wasn`tthat garlic your partner ate the nightbefore.

This problem isn`t purely a Japanese one of course, it alsotakes place in space. After a fatalaccident involving Apollo 1, NASA was forced to re-evaluate theirsafety measures. The accidentinvolved gas and some at NASA suggested that even one fart mighthave caused the calamity. Theystarted their analysis at that point. Finding that farts containmethane, they proved that farts canburn. Herman, my boy scout buddy regularly proved that on campouts, but that`s another story.

NASA analysed many farts and found that some do not includemethane. It depended on what thefarter had eaten. Eating carbohydrates tends to produce a methanebased fart, while eating meat orspace food that is meat based, produces an expellation that ismethane free or low in methane.This tends to cause the fartee (or recipient of the fart) to do asevere space gag, and possibly knockone of the controls out of whack. This of course could lead to aserious accident.

The drawback to all of these findings was, that low carbohydratespace food doesn`t produce thedreaded methane fart, but does produce a fart like Doug`s. Inspace, no one can hear you fart! But theycan sure as hell smell a fart after some gaseous Neil Armstrong hashad his ration of low carb space food.It stinks up the whole lunar module man! No wonder few astronautsever opted for a second mission andeveryone wanted to go for a space walk! Japanese astronaut MamoruMouri, who served on the SpaceShuttle remarked that when someone farts in space it doesn`tdissipate, "...it becum rump of gasu travellingthrough space shuttle. Sometime it strike fellow astronaut nose.Honto ni kusai!" (It smells justterrible,") he related. "It often happen in shuttle, but feeling ismutual," he finalized.

So there you have it, let`s be careful out there; and as my fathersaw on a Scottish grave stone:

"Aire we be, let wind blow free."

by Kevin Burns
at great personal risk

(Researched by T. Yamaki under much duress.
*Ms. Yamaki has shown no side effects, so far, from this research.)