Improbable Research

"’Homemade Zygotes — Just Like Mom’s!’"  You may not be that far off!"

So writes investigator Ron Josephson. The phrase is familiar to regular readers of AIR’s Unclassified Ads section, in which an ad saying exactly that has been appearing relentlessly for years now. See for example, the Unclassified Ads section in the magazine’s Jan//Feb 2003 issue, which is here.

Investigator Josephson was intrigued at seeing the concept come to, er, life, in the February 23, 2004 edition of the Evening Standard. The articles begins:

Human eggs for sale on the net

By Isabel Oakeshott, Evening Standard, Health Correspondent

Human eggs are being put up for sale over the internet for the first time today.

Entrepreneurs are cashing in on the shortage of donor eggs by launching an international brokering service.

Women needing eggs for IVF treatment can now use a website offering a bank of potential donors from around the world.

The eggs will sell for thousands of pounds, with huge payments for donors and middlemen collecting hefty "introductory" fees.

Read the whole article here.

Scientific reports don’t have to be dull or overly complex. Consider this passage: “OBJECTIVE: To find out whether taking images of the male and female genitals during coitus is feasible and…

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

If you you can’t get enough Trinkaus — and be aware that that makes you part of a growing horde — a rich analytical look is now available. Investigator Don Danila has written “Trinkaus: Another Informal Look.” It was published in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Partly because of the clamor to see it, and partly because we messed up the graphics in investigator Danila’s article in the original printing, we have posted the full version on line, with the proper graphics. See it here.

John W. Trinkaus, of course, was awarded the 2003 Ig Nobel Literature Prize (and a little something extra) for his copious and varied academic output.