Improbable Research

This year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration welcomed back not just leeches, but also maggots. In January the FDA, in case number K033391, approved maggots for use as a medical device.

(Thanks to John Bradley for bringing this to our attention.)

AIR editorial board member Mark Benecke is a devotee of maggots. He has posted on his web site a plethora of useful information and photos about the lovable little critters.

Some science books are deadly dull. But there is no dullness in Robert Cohen’s “Deadly” adventure series. It’s got plenty of good, old-fashioned deadliness…

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

Let’s Corporation has a device that is said to make flowers talk and sing.

The Marcellus Mystery, described in the October mini-AIR, concerns a research paper that seems to have been co-written by three (3) people each named Lenora Marcellus. It prompted this letter from Alan W. Harris:

I don’t know about Marcellus, et al., but here’s another for you:

Alan W. Harris and Alan W. Harris, “On the revision of radiometric albedos and diameters of asteroids,” Icarus 126, 450-454 (1997).

If you check the article, you will find the following footnote:

1. Since the authors’ contributions to this work were equal, the order listed is alphabetical. And yes, the middle names are both “William”.

So this is a case of duplicity of three names. I leave it to the readers of AIR to decide if two authors with three identical names is more unusual than three authors with two identical names. I dare say the odds of either is less than being hit by an asteroid. Actually, both AWH’s specialize in that very question.

Cheers,

Al the elder

P.S. We’re not related.

P.P.S. If you cite the article, you can refer to it as “Al et Al”.

NOTE: The other Harris was honored in a splendidly backwards gesture: with the naming of an asteroid.

Investigator Earle Spamer send this news about recent Ig Nobel winners:

The CNN.com “over”view of the Ig Nobel ceremony leads with the Prize for the combover. But they have an even higher notice of distinction. They provide a Quick Vote box for the unscientific measurement of whether voters adhere (or not) to the five-second rule.