First up, a disclaimer. I know one of the researchers who
conducted this short study personally and professionally. I
admire their work and what they have done to further the cause
of promoting research by medical students in India. So, this
post may be a little biased, but anyways, I decided to go ahead
with it because it is a very interesting topic. Studies have
shown that currency notes are prone to get tainted with illicit
drugs (1) like cocaine, heroine and amphetamines. This time
around, the researchers decided to look for bugs on bucks. The
interesting bit would be how they managed to collect the coins.
Twenty-five samples each of currency notes and coins were
collected from the general population by following simple random
sampling technique. The study population included people from
various occupations and walks of life, like beggars (n = 6),
street food vendors (n = 11) and school children (n = 8). The
samples were collected in a sterilized paper packet, numbered
serially and transported to the labo