Fun Fact Friday - Hang On To Your Pants

Every once in a while I find myself at a loss for what fun fact I would like to share with you, dear reader. And then, as is so often the case in life, underwear swoops in to save the day.

My hero.

You may or may not remember, dear reader, that I've talked about underwear a few times before. But can you blame me when there are so many underwear facts out there? And trust me, most of them are fun. But today I focus on the future of underwear.

I just hope the future of underwear does not look like this. Ever.

Fun fact: Scientists have been developing special bacteria to eat underwear in space.

Okay. Space underwear is already way cooler than earth underwear. I mean, it's motherfucking space underwear. But then you don't even have to wash your underwear anymore? That's pretty awesome. But before I get all of our hopes up, dear reader, you should know that there apparently haven't been many developments in the realm of underwear-eating bacteria since the late nineties.

And don't be fooled by the headline of this Kentucky newspaper from 1998. The Russian scientists were still working on ways to perfect underwear consumption.

Front page news in 1998 Kentucky. Just below a picture of children building a brick Christmas tree. True story.

Anyway, scientists wanted to dispose of underwear by having bacteria it eat and then produce methane that could be used for spacecraft energy. Underwear piles up more in space than it does in any given college dorm room, I suppose. Because apparently space also has rules about how often astronauts are allowed to change their underwear, which I did not see in Apollo 13. Thanks, Ron Howard. Just see how much of Cocoon I believe now.

So disappointing. Just like space underwear.

Animosity toward Ron Howard aside, where the hell did all this underwear-eating bacteria research go? If burning up underwear on reentry wasn't good enough in the nineties, are we letting ourselves settle now? I mean, I know the space race is over, but NASA, come on, if you're not investing in shuttles anymore maybe we can beat the Russians on this whole space underwear thing. For science! For honor! For underwear!