Improbable Research

Investigator Gary Hallock was inpired by our recent report about the report about the relative jumping abilities of dog and cat fleas. He produced an epic poem. Here it is:

FLEA’S A CROWD

The Lord, hard at work on "creation"

Distracted by itching sensation
 
Discovered that fleas
 
Were biting his knees

What’s this? It’s some sort of mutation

These fleas seemed intent on migration

In upwardly mobile invasion
 
He knew he’d soon find
 
Himself in a bind

With scratching and constant abrasion

So using his great ‘magination

He fixed up the whole situation
 
Creating the cat
 
Solved problem like "that"

Now fleas have a preoccupation

Murphy’s Law covers all of time and space. It is newly demonstrated in this report from the Associated Press:

David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned
space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space.
Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the
winds on Saturn’s largest moon….

(Thanks to noted attorney William J. Maloney for bringing it to our attention.)

There are depths and shoals to explore in Mark Isaak’s Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature. Investigator Isaak writes:

I would like to call your attention to two scientists whose
contributions, perhaps, are worthy of recognition.

Leigh Van Valen has expanded the horizons of paleontology into
Middle Earth by naming at least 21 paleocene mammals after
characters from Tolkien, including Bomburia, Earendil, Fimbrethil
ambaronae, and more.  Tolkien has inspired other taxonomists, too,
but none others to such an extent.

Neal L. Evenhuis excels at scientific names as an art form in
themselves.  He is perhaps best known for Phthiria relativitae;
his other contributions include Carmenelectra shechisme,
Meomyia, Villa manillae, Iyaiyai, Pieza pi, Pieza kake, Pieza rhea,
and Pieza deresistans, and more.

The other names contributed by these two people may be found
amidst other taxonomic flotsam and jetsam here, here, and here.

The January issue of mini-AIR just went out.

Who is the most productive academic in the world? Adrian Furnham, maybe, a professor of psychology at University College London. He has seven nominal appendages, specifically: BA, MA, MSc, MSc (Econ), DPhil, DSc and DLitt. His CV is 55 pages long.

This is perhaps worth repeating: Professor Furnham’s CV is 55 pages long…

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian