7th January: National pass gas day

Passing gas goes by hundreds of slang terms and euphemisms. The correct medical term is flatulence, but other words you can chose from include break wind, drop one, toot, anal acoustics, thunder down under, trouser cough, rectal honk, Butt bongos, Drop a bomb, Ghost turd, Let the beans out, parp, play the trouser tuba, and fart. Here are ten facts about farting. More tea, Vicar?

1. The average healthy human being farts 14 times a day. There's no difference between the amount of flatulence produced by males and females - males just show off about it more. The average volume of daily farts is 700ml, enough to blow up a birthday balloon. Someone with too much time on their hands once calculated that all the humans who ever lived have released approximately 17 quadrillion farts. Another person with too much time on their hands worked out that if one person farted non-stop for six years and nine months, or if everyone on Earth farted nine times all at once, they'd generate as much energy as an atomic bomb.
2. The word “fart” was been coined in 1632 and was defined as “to send forth wind from the anus.” It comes from the Old English word “feortan,” which means “to break wind.” Shakespeare may have pre-dated the word "fart" but that didn't stop him from mentioning flatulence five times in his plays. Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri and Jonathan Swift all made reference to passing gas. James Joyce claimed to be able to pick out his lover's farts "in a room full of farting women". There's even a word for finding farting sexy - eproctophilia.
3. A fart leaves the human body at around seven miles an hour.
4. Flatulence is caused by swallowing air and by Bacteria in the gut breaking down certain foods. 99% of what comes out is actually odourless - carbon dioxide, Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and methane. It's the 1% of sulphur compounds that make farts stink.
5. Humans are an inventive species so someone will always try to come up with a solution to any problem, and smelly farts are no exception. It is possible to buy underwear with carbon panels which can neutralise up to 77% of the smell. If that doesn't appeal, you can try the pill invented by Frenchman Christian Poincheval, which, he claims, make your farts smell like Roses or Chocolate.
6. That said, in 2014 scientists discovered that smelling farts might be good for you. Hydrogen sulfide, the gas that makes that rotten egg smell, might prevent mitochondrial damage, which can help prevent strokes, dementia, cancer, and heart attacks.
7. Farting is funny. In fact, the earliest recorded joke was a fart joke. It dates back to Sumeria in 1900 BC and has been translated thus: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap." Toys which make farting noises have been around since Roman times although the best known, the Whoopee cushion, wasn't invented until 1920. Fart gags move with the times - there are at least 60 apps for the iPhone which recreate the sound of human flatulence.
8. Need to fart more when you fly? There's a medical term for that, High Altitude Flatus Expulsion. It's also true that mountain climbers fart more the higher they go. That's because the pressure changes cause your intestines to expand. The opposite is true for deep sea divers. The pressure at depths of 33 or more feet below sea level stops digestive gas from forming bubbles so it festers inside the scuba diver’s colon instead of being expelled.
9. Humans aren't the only animals who fart. Cows are said to produce tons of methane, but neither humans nor cows are the Earth's champion farters. Termites are the creatures which fart the most, producing 11% of all the planet's methane emissions. The female Southern Pine Beetle uses pheromone-laden farts to attract males, while herrings use underwater farts to communicate with each other.
10. There are people who make careers out of farting. “Professional Fart Smeller” is an actual job in China. These strong-stomached individuals can make up to $50,000 a year diagnosing digestive illnesses through the scent of the patient’s flatulence. In the UK, there's Mr. Methane, who farts to the tunes of well-known songs. While he claims to be the world’s only performing flatulist, he's not the first. A legendary French performer known as “Le Pétomane”—which roughly translates as “Fartomaniac”—performed at Le Moulin Rouge in Paris. He used his anus to create “sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms” and played songs on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus.

See also: 
World Toilet Day

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Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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