Monk Breath: It Has a Tale to Tell

If you're trapped in a building after an earthquake or other disaster for 72 hours, you might get a little bit hungry. And dehydrated. And your breath might begin to smell funny. Scientists wanted to study this, but how are you going to find volunteer subjects who won't mind not eating for three days?

Enter the fasting monks of "the monastery of Vatopaidi, on the Athos peninsula inthe Aegean Sea... For three days before Easter,
they ingest neither food nor water.

Seven monks made their breathavailable to the scientists. They preceded their fast with a Sundayevening meal of fish, salad and wine. They ended it with a hot fruitsoup called housafi, consisting of plums, figs, grapes and oranges. Butbefore slurping the soup, they did some heavy breathing into plasticcollection bags.

Starved-monk breath is a treasure, so it washandled with care. The scientists pumped it from the collection bagsinto special tubes, then fed it into a gas chromatograph, which separated the breath into its constituent parts.

Those monks. So handy!

Something in the air [Guardian]