You'd think "The Arthur Vandelay Urological Research Institute" would be a dead giveaway. But it seems some journal editors don't know their Seinfeld reruns.
John McCool wants to expose what he calls "predatory journals." These are periodicals with science-y sounding names that will publish research for a hefty fee and don't have the most robust peer review process (if any), taking advantage of scientists' need to "publish or perish" McCool thought the Urology & Nephrology Open Access Journal might be one of these, so he submitted a paper based on a fake disease from a "Seinfeld" episode and littered the document with references to the show.
The paper purports to be a case study on "uromysitisis," a not-real disease Jerry claims to have when he's caught urinating in a parking garage in a great 1991 Seinfeld episode. McCool wrote up his experience in The Scientist:
I went all out. I wrote my report as "Dr. Martin van Nostrand," the physician-alter ego of another Seinfeld character, and listed more show-inspired names as bogus coauthors. I made an email account for "Dr. van Nostrand" and created a fake institution where the authors worked: the Arthur Vandelay Urological Research Institute. In the acknowledgements section of my report, I thanked phony physicians including Tor Eckman, the bizarre holistic healer from "The Heart Attack," giving him a "Doctor of Holistic Medicine (HMD)" degree.
This isn't the first attempt to expose questionable journals by submitting ridiculous studies. A 2013 effort saw scientists submit made-up papers to more than 300 open-access journals.
MedCrave, the parent company of this journal, put out a statement this month saying that it is not a predatory publisher. In any case, its editors should probably flag any future scientific studies that cite George Costanza, J Peterman, or George Steinbrenner.
If you make a habit of holding in your pee for ages, you're subjecting yourself to pretty serious long-term effects, including a higher risk of infection. And as the video above explains, constantly holding in your pee can weaken your bladder muscles, which could lead to urinary retention - the dreaded condition that prevents you from being able to fully empty your bladder when you pee, which means you feel like peeing a lot.
Holding in large amounts of urine for an extended period of time also exposes your body to potentially harmful bacteria, which can increase your chances of getting a urinary tract infection (UTI) or bladder infection.
All of which sounds pretty bad, but not exactly life-threatening, right? Well, you're just not trying hard enough.
Enter Tycho Brahe: a Danish astronomer and alchemist back in the 16th century. Brahe was a fantastic scientist, contributing to the scientific literature on everything from supernovae, comets, and planetary orbits. He also ended up in a duel with a fellow nobleman over the legitimacy of a mathematical formula, and because they chose to duel in the dark, he ended up losing the entire bridge of his nose. For the rest of his life, Brahe glued a silver or gold nose replacement onto his face.
As colourful as all that is, Brahe's cause of death is perhaps even more ridiculous. He reportedly refused to leave a banquet to relieve himself because he believed it to be a breach of ettique, but then once he got home, he found he was unable to pee at all. He descended into delerium and died soon after when his entire bladder burst.
