Discovery Magazine’s Discoblog has a feature called NCBI ROFL which covers particularly odd scientific studies, such as the one that correlates eye color and sports performance or the one examining indentity exploration in World of Warcraft.

They recently posted this gem from PubMed entitled, “The history of poisoning in the future: lessons from Star Trek.”

Out of the 79 Star Trek episodes, 28 (35%) involved toxin-related incidents. A total of 31 poisoning incidents were documented with 13 environmental, 9 intentional, 5 unintentional, and 4 homicidal circumstances. Biotoxins (10 incidents) were the most frequently involved toxin followed by neurotoxins (9), radiation (3), cytotoxins (3), temporal toxins (3), acids (2), and phytotoxins (1). Of these cases, 2 involved hazardous materials incidents, 1 was contamination of food, and 3 involved therapeutic misadventures.

Apparently there’s a place for Mr. Yuk even in the 23rd Century.