Consider who gets their name on a lot of papers and participates in a lot of committees ("co-operates with others"): middle-age and older (takes a while to understand the system and make the contacts). I could already have told you that this group gets out for an evening beer less often than young newcomers. This article doesn't have a direct link to the paper it discusses, but did it break down by age?

Further contributing factors: active conference and standards-body participants travel a lot, and probably don't manage to stay in touch with their local pub regulars (or even local coworkers) so much as their less-active colleagues, so they wouldn't have anyone to talk with if they did pop in for a pint or two. The only people they see regularly live elsewhere.

Then, there are possibly social differences between the bar scene in Prague and that in Oxford, which may mean the results would not transfer. It may not be the actual beer that's the problem.

thats two boffins and one egghead, he'll be spitting feathers by the time he gets to the comments section (or maybe thats because he's got a hangover.....;p)

(re: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/11/t_ray_spy_beam_da_vinci_invisible_shed/comments/#c_152822 )

that the relationship perhaps goes the other way?

Perhaps the "depression, "lack of co-operation with others", and decreased employability prospects" is what drove them to drink in the first place?

"Thomáš Grim"

I'm all for accented characters - it's a nice change from English to be actually able to tell how a word is pronounced from how it's written - but clearly in this case there was an ink blot on the birth certificate.

Anyway, sounds like a typical teetotaler to me. "How could anyone enjoy arguing about things they don't care about, taking sides they don't believe in and getting into pretend fights with people they like when they could be 'co-operating with others' sitting in a circle comparing woolen jumpers?"

Yeah but Lester always make /boffin/ sound affectionate; it’s Lewis who makes it sound as if he’s looking down his 12 foot nose from his penthouse on condescension heights.

What do you expect?

@ Spleen; The accents in the name Thomáš do still change the pronunciation, it's pronounced more like Thom-ash than plain old Tomas.

I've always wondered about the statistic that Prague has the highest per capita beer intake in the world, i could be wrong but i doubt the figures take the massive numbers of beer swilling tourists into account, the Czechs i know drink very regularly, but tend to not take it to the "lets drink till we're sick then drink some more" extremes you see in the UK.

And if you're sitting in a bar, in Prague, surrounded by gorgeous women and all you can think of to do is discuss physics then there's something wrong with you.