Missing Teaspoons

OK -- first of all, the name. The concept is borrowed (stolen) from a marvelous little parody by Lim et al. that appeared in the British Medical Journal at the end of 2005, in which three members of an Australian research institute "discreetly numbered" 70 teaspoons in the institute's tearooms and attempted to track them spatially over the ensuing five weeks. This "longitudinal cohort study" resulted in, among other things, a measured teaspoon half-life and a discussion section that related teaspoon fate to the larger construct of the Tragedy of the Commons. Highly recommended. (Don't forget also to read the article's supplemental material and the Rapid Responses, some of which are hilarious.)