Improbable Research

The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) is proud to welcome two new members: Dr. Ronan Amicel of Rennes, France, and Dr. Huw Kruger Gray, formerly of Great Bentley, Essex, England, and now of Boston Massachusetts, USA. See them here.

For devotees of missile coloring books, there is none more fun than the Missile Defense Agency Coloring Book. See it here.

And many of the many admirers of Troy Hurtubise will enjoy drawing home-built armor onto the Bear Aware Coloring Book. See it here.

“He was a con artist, but boy, he pulled it off,” Queeney said. “The man was truly a riddle wrapped in a sleeping bag. I don’t know if any of us will ever know who he really was.”

So ends an Associated Press (AP) report, published on January 3, 2004, about the man who would still be alive today had he heeded the example set by Troy Hurtubise. Troy is the inventor who spent seven years building and personally testing a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears. This won Troy the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize in the field of Safety Engineering.

Read our recent report about the man who, unlike Troy, proudly refused to wear any kind of grizzly-proof garments here.

See the entire even-more-recent AP report (the one quoted above) about that same gentleman here.

And should that not slake your interest in the general subject of people who did not learn what Troy would gladly have taught them, consider this description of another former bear enthusiast; it was published in the January 1, 2004, issue of the Los Angeles Times and then reprinted elsewhere:

Vitaly Nikolayenko, one of Russia’s best-known bear researchers and a man who spent 25 years living with the enormous brown bears of the wild Kamchatka peninsula, has been found dead in an apparent bear mauling, authorities said Tuesday.

Read that entire report here.

The patent application seems to challenge the “one sentence per claim” rule. It reads:

What is new in the art of “Glory!” is that there has never been a Christian board game designed or illustrated such as this! From each individually characterized figurine representing the “Armour of God” to the uniquely designed game cards to the destination in which we seek has never been placed on a board ever! The particulars of the game give each Player the opportunity to learn about God in a more personal way while learning how to study the word of God at the same time. “Glory!” is solely designed to enhance the Christian and/or “unbeliever” in their walk with God simultaneously bringing the family together in an atmosphere that is conducive for learning and growing together. It has its ups and downs as with all games because there will be winners and losers and in this case, there will be those that make it to “Glory!” and those that don’t! Continual playing of the game will bring hours of family entertainment and enjoyment in a good and positive atmosphere!

The inventor, whose name is Senora Melody Downs, of Baltimore, Mariland, filed this application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on June 6, 2002. The patent office ultimately denied the application.

See entire application here.

See the inventor’s technical illustration of Glory here.

(Thanks to Investigator Martin Meder for bringing this to our attention.)

Exactly how dangerous is it to think? The question matters, because for some people it truly is dangerous - physically, life-threateningly dangerous.

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