The average Master Chief Petty Officer can probably hold a coffee mug on a rowboat in the middle of a hurricane without spilling a drop, but apparently those at the Pentagon questioned how others could spill coffee simply by walking. So, in 2016 they commissioned the best minds in the Defense Department to conduct a study and find out why. At the bargain basement price of $170,000, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) studied the issue with researchers at the University of California and discovered that any low-viscosity liquid can spill when subjected to human biomechanics. As if that wasn’t a total waste of time, researchers got busy offering some science-based solutions to prevent spills and keep uniforms clean. Those solutions included (1) Don’t walk fast, (2) Watch where you’re going, and (3) If you have to move fast, start slow. And that, my friends, is your taxpayer dollars at work.
