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 Sneezing & Necrophilia 2010-02-12 My naturally scientific mind leads me to the interesting questions that often make up the content of award winning shows such as Mythbusters. The only problem is that if I tested my theories people would die or end up in jail. Case in point: Can F1 drivers sneeze. At first this was a question of someone wearing a helmet while travelling at speeds of approximately 300 km / hr. If you are going to talk about it, you might as well talk about it at the top speed. Should someone driving a car at this speed sneeze it seems like there would be dire consequences. At first I was thinking about a) closing your eyes for a slightly extended period and b) the obscuring of vision as a result of mucus on the inside of the visor. Point two, it was pointed out by a very astute student of mine, is moot because they wear fully covering headgear underneath their helmet, I believe its part of a fire suit to protect them in case of a burny crash, so while the sneeze may be messy, it would just lead to a wet upper lip and not obscure vision. Still, when you sneeze, you close your eyes. I don't know if anyone has measured how long, but I would be interested in the amount of distance travelled in this instance which could then be projected into the risk of going off track or hitting an obstacle. My second, and far worse example (apparently), involves some necrophilia. Please let me justify myself before you conclude that I am pro-necrophilia as I am positively on the fence on that issue. What I was initially wondering was if the aids virus can survive, and for how long, in a dead body. I was pretty sure it doesn't go dormant, but not being a doctor, I am not sure. After some discussion there seems to be some consensus that the aids virus would not survive in a corpse. I was then trying to figure out who this could benefit. I know that blood isn't collected from dead bodies, so obviously it isn't useful medically. Then I realized that necrophiliacs don't have to worry about aids. For a group with so many social concerns (should others find out) suddenly there is one less worry. add comment to post #265 anon:Apparently HIV can last for 6 days in a corpse: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8465464.stm Name:It's not that hard to prevent your eyes closing when you sneeze. I can do it. It's about as difficult as learning how to wink or cross your eyes. Peter:Were you sneezing with your eyes open when you added to the wrong post? A couple of people have mentioned this post to me and I think they are missing the actual point. What I am interested in is mainly the distance traveled by an F-1 car in the time someones eyes would be closed IF they sneezed while driving as fast as they could. How likely it would be to cause a crash etc. I know people don't sneeze when they have any amount of adrenaline in them since when I do Judo my seasonal allergies completely disappear for the period of exertion. My introductory statement was actually intended to set a theme and a variety of conditions to be examined. If F1 drivers sneezed and it caused crashes either the sport would have been stopped or someone would have done something about before now. mr sneeze:You blink for about 300 milliseconds and F1 cars max speed would be of the order of 100 metres/second, so I guess that would be about 30 metres during the time your eyes are closed. The time spent while you are distracted by going to sneeze would be much greater though. 
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