If you’re a guy, you’re probably aware of “splash-back”, which is just an unfortunate by-product of peeing in a urinal. If you’ve never heard of splash-back, then let me assure you, it’s exactly what it sounds like. But leave it to human factors psychologists to devise a solution.

What do you think men do when they stand there and pee? What do you think they think about? Well, if you think world problems are solved at those wall-mounted, porcelain receptacles, think again. Most men seem to focus on aiming their streams. Yes ladies, it’s true. Whether we admit it or not, we aren’t doing much more than playing “First One to Erode the Urinal Cake” or pretending we are Chief Fireman Baker, a gruff loaner with a heart of gold who also happens to be Urinal Town’s only hope to quell a fire that threatens to decimate the local orphanage.

So what do human factors have to do with splash-back? Well plenty actually. Some scientists got together and found the optimal area to pee on. An area that saw the least amount of splash-back. Once they found that area, they would need to mark it. Basically, they would need to get all the men to aim their stream at that one spot. How to do that ? Stick something there. By conducting some simple experiments, they found that men would aim their stream at specific “targets.” They chose a bee, but it could have been anything, really (others have used flies, bulls-eyes, and an assortment of quirky little targets). You can click on the thumbnail above to enlarge the image (sorry for the low quality shots, all I had was my iPhone).

So the next time you see a little bee on a urinal, and can’t help but a) wonder what it’s doing there, and b) why you have to aim for it, well, now you know (and it’s not there to reduce “spillage” as falsely reported by BoingBoing). Personally, I think it’s actually pretty cool to see something I read about in class, applied to the real world. These were taken on campus, and when I saw them, I was secretly proud of my academic institution for being so progressive.