Robin Ince, the British comedian and science fan best known for presenting BBC’s The Infinite Monkey Cage, has been teaching schoolkids in London about the science behind Guinness World Records titles.
His latest class was all about the Amorphophallus titanium – otherwise known as the corpse flower.
Growing as tall as a phone box and stinking of decomposing flesh, the giant bloom is officially the world’s Smelliest plant.
Humans can’t stand the stench – and can smell it from a mile away – but bugs are attracted to it and inadvertently pollinate the plant’s flowers by laying their eggs inside.
The species is only found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, so to give the kids an idea of the smell, Robin takes the class through an experiment to recreate the awful odour.
"What happens if I vomit?" asks one of the kids as rotting fish, cooked onions, garlic, cheese and other ingredients are added to the concoction.
Robin wrote the introduction to our latest book, Guinness World Records: Science & Stuff (the UK version), which is all about the world’s grossest, smelliest, weirdest and noisiest records.
Last week, we shared a video of the schoolchildren attempting to beat the records for the Loudest shout (individual) and Loudest scream (individual).
