Seriously, we needed to research this?

Ok, so I'll freely admit that my own research is a bit esoteric, but then again, I doubt I'll ever require huge sums of money to complete my research--at any point in my career. That said, it really irritates me when people research the obvious, as this doctor did: Study Unveils Likely Cause of Mt. Everest Deaths. I mean, seriously? We needed to conduct a lengthy study of all the deaths of climbers on Everest from 1920 to 2006 to know that most of them likely died from a lack of oxygen, complicated by the extreme weather conditions present on Everest? Hell, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a mountain climber, and I've never been to the Himalayas, but you know what? I knew this without having to read a study published in the British Journal of Medicine. I ask my fellow Situationers, most of whom are also academics: did this really need to be researched?