If you’ve ever walked into a workplace tearoom, opened the cutlery drawer with optimism, and found exactly zero teaspoons (again), congratulations: you are not alone.
Researchers at Translational Research Institute (TRI) in Brisbane have used the latest microchipping technology to confirm what office workers have long suspected – that teaspoons disappear from workplace tearooms at a consistent rate.
The cold, hard (stainless steel) facts
The TRI team found teaspoons are lost at a rate of exactly 2.58 teaspoons per person per 100 teaspoon years in communal tearooms.
TRI CEO Professor Maher Gandhi led the research, with TRI extending the findings from a landmark study at the Burnet Institute, which originally tracked 70 teaspoons over five months and found that 80% went missing. The teaspoons had a half-life of just 81 days, with communal tearoom spoons disappearing even faster (42 days) compared to those in departmental tearooms (77 days).
Building on this foundation, TRI investigated the concept of resistentialism as a potential cause.
For those unfamiliar, resistentialism is the belief that inanimate objects have a natural antipathy towards humans, a concept that makes perfect sense if you’ve ever dropped a USB, watched it bounce twice, and vanish into another dimension.
An intergalactic truth
To get to the bottom of the mystery, TRI deployed micro-chip implanted “stealth-spoons”, tracked over five years using (naturally) satellite imaging and outer-space AI-guided inter-galactic rockets.
“We threw everything at this because we felt it was important to get to the truth. Yes, we can handle the truth,” Professor Gandhi said. office teaspoons
The team also ran correlative exploratory analyses involving spatial transcriptomics, metabolomics, shotgun metagenomics, the microbiome, quality of life, health economics, and, in what can only be described as methodological generosity, ‘choose your own adventure multi-omics’.
(Science has come a long way. Somehow, teaspoons have not.)
“It’s just as well TRI has world-class capabilities and infrastructure,” Professor Gandhi said, pointing to TRI’s specialised core facilities across microscopy, flow cytometry, histology, preclinical imaging, biological research, gnotobiotics, and a human immune model facility”
Without such sophisticated technology, Professor Gandhi admitted he would have lost considerable sleep over the inability to provide definitive proof of the consistent teaspoon loss pattern.
In keeping with best practices in research methodology, the study ensured that consumers were actively engaged throughout all phases of the study design. The research team showed a particular bias toward including tea drinkers rather than coffee consumers in their consultations. “It’s teaspoons, after all,” Professor Gandhi reasoned.
So… where do the teaspoons go?
The research found irrevocable evidence that stealth-spoons were being taken against their wishes to a distant galaxy in the far reaches of the universe.
In reaching this conclusion, researchers were able to definitively rule out resistentialism, proving that teaspoons don’t harbour ill will toward humans; they’re simply being abducted.
“Whether removal of teaspoons, but notably not research equipment or data — constitutes evidence of ‘intelligent’ life is debatable,” Professor Gandhi said. “It’s not something that can be addressed within the limitations of our study design.”
When the Burnet Institute surveyed their staff after revealing the study, 73% of employees reported being dissatisfied with teaspoon coverage, proving that teaspoons are indeed an essential part of office life. Interestingly, after the study was revealed, five teaspoons were sheepishly returned by “miscreant hoarders,” with one having been missing for 20 weeks. No one admitted to permanently removing teaspoons from the institute.
@dexter.mp4 Where are the teaspoons?! #science #experiment #learning #learneclecticthings ♬ original sound – Dexter.mp4
TRI is encouraging further international research projects in this area, preferably involving presentations at overseas conferences in exotic locations. office teaspoons
In a final note of reassurance: no TRI staff, spoons or aliens were inconvenienced during the conduct of the research. Researchers also went out of their way to be nice to knives and forks for fear of playing favourites.
No teaspoon companies were involved in the funding of the study.
TRI: saving lives… and chasing teaspoons.
