"I thought 'what? ... they're paying scientists millions of dollars to find that out?"
It only got more bewildering a short time later when she came across another "study" which focused on what effects cocaine has on a bee.
"I'm not kidding," she was quick to say.
"So I mean, how often would you find a bee up some back alley somewhere looking for a cocaine dealer?"
Speaking with people she came across more and "studies have shown" examples emerged and she figured two things.
One ... it would make a great subject to create laughs from, and two ... "I can come up with all sorts of stuff I want to do research on if I was a scientist so how could I get in on this racket?"
Urzila said humour had always been part of her life, despite some tough times along the way.
She was only a little girl back in South Africa where she grew up when she had her first audience - teachers.
Someone had once asked her why her parents had divorced and so she asked her mum who said she had always wanted to be a merry widow but her husband would not take the poison.
She took that as gospel so further down the track when the divorce subject came up again, and a teacher asked her why her parents had split, that's what she said.
The teacher gasped and went and fetched a couple more and asked her to repeat what she'd said.
"So I did and they all laughed and I was hooked - I loved the effect I'd had on them."
She had always liked to write as a child and when she was 11 once told her mum that one day she would write a book.
Which she has in the form of Rolling With The Punchlines - a from the heart and directly honest biography of her life growing up in South Africa and of eventually moving to New Zealand in 2006.
"I love it here - it's home now," she said, adding that she first began performing her material in 2008 and from there it just blossomed.
Since then her sister, brother and mother have also come to live here.
She has picked up a string of comedy awards including Best Female Comedian for five years running and has taken the TV3 People's Choice Award twice at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.
While she reckoned the writing of material was more challenging than getting out and performing it, the latter still induced the nerves - until the first laughs arrived.
Like when they did as a child with her teachers.
"I always try to re-create that and when the first laughs arrive then it's all on."
Napier had always been a popular spot for her and she said when the time came she would likely retire here to live.
Nelson was her favourite spot in the South Island and Napier in the north.
"I'm not kidding - so yeah, I'll retire to Napier ... but I'm not sure comedians ever retire do they?"