Most people tucking into any hamburger put their thumbs on the bottom and fingers on the top but those bored researchers who apparently have little to do say that can lead to disastrous results.

A couple of bites and coleslaw, pickles, tomato, cheese, sauce and mayonnaise end up over your face, hands and your shirt or blouse.

So the team of three experts in mechanics, engineering and dentistry, spent four months – four months, mind you – to come up with the best way to hold your burger, including doing a three-dimensional scan of one.

They say you should use both thumbs and little fingers to hold the bottom and the three middle fingers to hold the top of the bun in place. This divides the hamburger into equal parts so it can be held uniformly.

Well, there you go. It’s earth-shattering stuff and no doubt the research team will be in line for an Albert Einstein science award.

THE best travel-tourism show on TV is back so if you want to see a big part of Europe at its best, tune in to the SBS coverage of the Tour de France each night.

You get an amazing birds-eye view of the countryside and the Alps, the villages and towns and the 12^th century castles and churches as the cameras and a helicopter follow the cyclists through 3,336 kilometres of France.  

There’s only 15 kilometres outside the French borders in Spain on stage 16 between Carcassonne and Bagnères-de-Luchon so there’s lots of France to see and as well you can follow Bathurst rider Mark Renshaw in his 10th tour.

We’ve already had five days of the tour that finishes on the Champs Elysees in Paris on Sunday, July 29. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a cycling fan, the scenery is amazing and far better TV than some of the rubbish dished up.

AN animal rights activist group called Voiceless is sending speakers to schools to promote what it describes as “critical thinking about the human-animal relationship”.

But the Education Department isn’t amused and has already banned a Sydney high school’s involvement because it says students should be able to think for themselves and not be influenced by the interests of one group.

Voiceless says society has a moral right to speak up for animals even though they can “speak in languages we humans have failed to understand or have simply chosen not to hear ...”.

Chickens, Voiceless believes, also possess communication skills on par with humans, use sophisticated signals to convey intentions and have a range of emotions including fear, anxiety, boredom, frustration and distress. 

Stop Press decided to test the claims and confronted a chook in a neighbour’s backyard: “Can you speak? Are you frustrated? Afraid of me?” 

With a menacing look it strutted up, delivered a peck on the leg and then fled, clucking excitedly, wings flapping. There was no communication. Or fear. Or anxiety. Or boredom. Just a cranky chook. Back to the drawing board Voiceless.