So goes the subject line of, so far, 4 separate emails sent out on the all-students mailing list over the last few months. All of them are from different people, and they’re all about… wait for it… pain research!

Between them they propose burning your hands with lasers and forcing you to watch horrific videos, whilst scanning your brain. It’s either unpaid, or for a (low, low) chance of winning a raffle of some kind. So it seems like there is going to be serious problem with selection bias.

What if they come to conclusions about pain based entirely on a sample of people who happily volunteered for this research? That is, people who like pain and enjoy watching car crashes? I can just see the BBC headlines:

New study confirms it: pain not so bad after all.

This just in: traumatic situations cause bleeding, grinning.

Scientists recommend at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted agony every day.