Looks weired but a sound of C and T has to be somehow connected, at least it feels like they are to me. Based on my experience, sound of Polish Ć and Czech Ť are transitional between Polish/Czech T/C. Proper linguist might put some more light on it than just my speculation.
Even so clavicles can be asymmetrical due to previous injury. We are pretty asymmetrical overall if you look closely enough.
Such a small groups are fine for initial investigation, they have enough of a size to be acceptable statistically for most of the performed studies. I don’t think they’d get approval from ethical committee overseeing animal experiments without initial study like this to conduct something on very high groups.
Can you elaborate why do you think that water is improper control?
Those overly negative comments often come from USA. I’ve never had any major problems with self checkout in Europe and I generally go there as it’s faster and you don’t have to race against the cashier. Of course some chains have worse self checkouts, some have better but overall many people like it a lot. Even some older people who are not tech savvy use them.
Polish C is also described as /t͡s/ (e.g. co /t͡sɔ/). According to wiki both are dental and voiceless although one is plosive and the other affricate. As I’ve read their descriptions on wiki, they made a lot of sense - /t͡s/ starts with a blockade of airway (just as /t/) but the air is released slightly differently thus making the difference in sound produced.