Inspired by a Bag

Or Science is Everywhere

Now that we have that shopping bag, there are a number of questions popping up that keep tickling the researcher’s brain. Or could be tickling a researcher’s brain if they are inclined to look at a mere shopping bag for research inspiration.

In a listicle-type style (hats off to Public Relations writing), let’s take a look at which science could tackle what by just taking this bag.

Business and economics:

How do we get the consumers to buy stuff in a particular shop and also take the bag to take things home? How do we appeal to the consumers’ emotions to make their shopping a good and fun experience? How do we design a shopping bag that we can use in our shops of our international retail chain?

Environmental sciences:

Which material can we use to leave as little impact on the environment as possible in terms of CO2, recycling, colours for printing, and the likes? Or where can we responsibly look for resources for cat food and dog food and paper (for the bags).

Biology:

Which sounds are part of a cat’s and dog’s communication system? How do cats and dogs produce sounds? What do these sounds mean? How do cats and dogs differ?

Linguistics:

How does this bag exemplify multilingualism? How can we do phonetics (including animal phonetics)? What do the words on the shopping bag say about our society (including linguistic landscapes)? We could also do stuff on dialects and accents and more.

Cultural studies:

What can we say about people’s relationship with their pets? Which role do pets play in people’s lives?

Geography:

In which countries do cats and dogs make these sounds?

Mathematics:

erm, now I am fishing a bit, but how many pouches of cat food (or dog food) can we pack into the bag before it bursts?

Physics:

If we consider the shopping bag as a Schrödinger’s bag, does our cat like the cat food we bought or not? No seriously, bag or box – perhaps it’s a stretch, but we could tie the shopping bag to Schrödinger’s cat.

Other:

Any more suggestions? Please let me know.

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