Improbable Research

Is mad cow disease a tragedy of operatic scale? Not yet, but it is of mini-operatic scale. “The Brain Food Opera,”a mini-opera in 3 acts, was performed at the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. The entire libretto is here, and you can hear the perfomance by listening to NPR Science Friday’s broadcast of the ceremony, which is archived here.

The third (and concluding) act of the mini-opera is sung to the tune of “Libiamo” from Verdi’s “La Traviata.” This is how it begins:

HE: It’s clear –
Fish and brains are not merely a fad.
And if only the two of us weren’t so intelligent,
My dear, Then by now I would surely be mad
As a hatter and you would be madder than a cow.

SHE: The public seems to be wanting brains and fish.
They always ask for the latest diet.
And they don’t stop, not until they buy it.
Of course they must try it right away.

BOTH: Our dream has come true,
Both for me and for you.
We could not bear it
If we don’t share it with the world.

SHE: I know
Now, my darling, it’s you I adore!
And your I.Q.
There’s no one like you
In all the world today.
And so
Minor side effects we can ignore –
Like conniptions and heebie-jeebies and maybe death.

Kees Moeliker, who won the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, published a photo-rich diary of his Ig experience. See it here.

Aline McKenzie of the Dallas Morning News personally tested Bow-Lingual, the automatic dog-to-human-language translation device, the inventors of which received the 2002 Ig Nobel Peace Prize. She also discussed it with a scientist named Beaver. Read her account here (a free registration to that newspaper’s web site is required).

The Japanese magazine AERA attempted to explain the Ig and its influence on Japan. Read the words and see the photographs here.

At the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb delivered an especially animated Nano-Lecture, on the topic CHEMISTRY. See it here. This is the third of the five Nano-Lectures we’ll be posting.

The Nano-Lecture recalled Mike Stanfill’s magnificent tribute to Tom Lehrer, which was part of the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.

The January issue of mini-AIR just went out. Read it here.

Contents include, among other things:
/ Survey: Beauty and Truth
/ Filth-in-Foods Paeans
/ A Month Without Frogs
/ Tea Scum Backward Poets
/ Hladik, Hladik, Hladik, Hladik Hoorah
/ BOVINE INDECISION LIMERICK CONTEST
/ RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: The Danger of Chinese
/ More Hair
/ MAY WE RECOMMEND: Warr, Payne, Strain, Boom

In Re Louis the Lugnut

You dastardly FIENDS!!!! How could you kill Louis the Lugnut??????! Bring him back!!!!!!!

F. T. Alvis, Ph.D.,University of Cambridge, England

That is the first in our voluminous collection of letters regarding the demise of the “Louis the Lugnut” comic strip. The Lugnut Society, the foremost group of admirers and scholars of Louis the Lugnut, has asked that we put up another pointer to our selected highlights collection of Lugnut letters. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here.

Some call him “Z.” Who is he,that handsome young man with the intent gaze, and why is he holding a rat, and what fortune became him many years later? The answer is here, the honor is described here.

High school student Emily Yuan delivered her Nano-Lecture on the topic MEMORY. This is the second of the five Nano-Lectures (from the recent Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony) that we’ll be posting. The accompanying photo appears in the special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine.

When do young adults skip and hop, and why? These are the questions that faced Allen W Burton, Luis Garcia and Clersida Garcia. The answers appear in their published research report “Skipping and Hopping of Undergraduates: Recollections of When and Why”.

So begins this week’s Improbable Research newspaper column in the Guardian. Read it here.

When do young adults skip and hop, and why? These are the questions that faced Allen W Burton, Luis Garcia and Clersida Garcia. The answers appear in their published research report “Skipping and Hopping of Undergraduates: Recollections of When and Why”.

So begins this week’s Improbable Research newspaper column in the Guardian. Read it here.

Lene Hau’s Nano-Lecture about SLOW LIGHT is now posted. Over the next week or two, we will also post the other Nano-Lectures that were presented at the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.

What is a Nano-Lecture? For those unfamiliar with this tiny concept, here’s the official description:

Each Nano-Lecture was on an assigned topic. The lecturer was asked to explain that topic twice:
• FIRST, a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS;
• and THEN a clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS.

What’s old? Click here to see a list of new items added to our web site PRIOR to 2004.

We are adding oomph, or at least words, to this section — the “What’s New” section — of the web site, and will be adding items more frequently.