Toilet Taboos Can Make Scientific Fieldwork Dangerous

Gawain Antell knew something was seriously wrong when students started vomiting.

In spring 2019, the paleobiologist — then earning a Ph.D. at the University of Oxford — was working as a teaching assistant on a geological mapping field trip in Scotland when, after returning to the hotel, a handful of undergraduate women grew grievously ill. Antell soon learned that the students hadn’t been drinking enough water, a situation made worse by the unusually warm weather.

Antell was particularly alarmed to discover that the students were deliberately dehydrated. And for one simple reason: They didn’t want to pee while out in the field.