Improbable Research

"Could dandruff be altering the world’s climate?" That is the provocatively-worded question used to begin a news report that is almost as interesting as its beginning, The article, in New Scientist magazine, is about new research on what’s floating around in the atmosphere.

The April issue of mini-AIR just went out. It includes news about a sea monster discovery (a study to be published this month reveals something unexpected about the history of sea monster sightings.)

Lock three men in a room, make them smoke cannabis, and then try to provoke them into being hostile. Thirty years ago a team of American doctors actually conducted this daring experiment….

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

Investigator Jim Cowdery writes:

Just in case you don’t already know about this: Komar & Melamid’s
questionnaire project about desirable art was well-publicized, but I just
discovered their similar project about desireable music, which resulted in a
CD.

"The most wanted song" is five minutes long and comprises a medium-sized
group (guitar, piano, saxophone, bass, drums, violin, violoncello,
synthesizer, and low male and female voices) performing in a rock/R&B style.
It narrates a love story, and has a moderate tempo, volume, and pitch range.
It will be enjoyed by approximately 72% of listeners. "The most unwanted
song" is 22 minutes long, and features accordion and bagpipe (tied at 13% as
the most unwanted instrument) along with banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ,
and synthesizer (the only instrument to appear in both ensembles). It
involves an operatic soprano rapping and singing atonal music; advertising
jingles, political slogans, and elevator music; a children’s choir singing
jingles and holiday songs; and dramatic juxtapositions of loud and quiet
sections, fast and slow tempos, and very high and low pitches. Fewer than
200 individuals in the entire world will enjoy it.

A video of Eric Schulman’s brilliant 60-second-long History of the Universe is now up on the National Science Foundation’s web site. It shows Dr. Schulman performing what was originally a 200-word written piece that appeared in the Jan/Feb 1997 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Dr. Schulman first performed it at the 1997 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, where a book publisher saw him and offered him a contract to expand it to book length. Dr. Schulman rose to the challenge, resulting in the now-classic A Briefer History of Time. Dr. Schulman’s original 200-word piece, by the way, has now been translated into more than 30 languages.

Mato Pavlovic of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in
Berlin and Michael Dean of the University of Delaware have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

Relationships expert Dr.Pepper Schwartz, encountering the question "Last night I actually yawned in the middle of sex with my husband," replied with sub-optimal advice. Perhaps someone will point her to the definitive source of info on the subject: Wolter Seuntjens’s Ph.D thesis  On Yawning or the hidden sexuality of the human yawn. 

In some circles, most of them fictional, people talk about how easy it would be to destroy the Earth. Sam Hughes, a mathematics student at Cambridge University, has done more than talk about it. In the noblest tradition of his profession, he has thought about it.

Musicologists have a delicious new stew of data to devour. A singer named Wing has moved from Hong Kong to New Zealand, where she has been laboring to adapt a traditional form of song called "Beatles music." One song — "I Want to Hold Your Hand" — may be of special interest to analysts.

(Thanks to Steve Beeber for bringing this to our attention.)

Kees Moeliker’s Ig Nobel Prize-winning report about a case of homosexual necrophilia in a Dutch mallard duck has had ramifications.

Moeliker took part in the recent Ig Nobel Tour of the UK, which inspired the indefatigable journalist Donald MacLeod to (1) write a newspaper article that drew so much reader response that it crashed his newspaper’s web server; and then (2) unearth a much earlier — and little-known — account of equally shocking behavior by a British feral rock dove. MacLeod daringly published a report that brought the news to an eager public.

A 1978 article by the late Max Gerson still makes people sit up in wonder. It was published – a remarkable 19 years after his death – in the journal Physiological Chemistry and Physics.

Gerson perfected the chemico-physiological theory and practice of the coffee enema. By his theory, cancer is caused by poisons accumulating in the body. Thanks to Gerson, we are assured that coffee enemas can extract those poisons, thus curing cancer. And thanks in no small part to the enematic Prince Charles, Gerson’s views on poisons continue to insert themselves into the public discourse and elsewhere.

This stirring passage can be found amidships in our February 2005 column (the first in an occasional series) in Chemistry World.

Harald Hammarström of Chalmers University of Technology has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

Do you enjoy research that is all about hopes and dreams? Then do you not owe yourself a look at The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine?

Rebecca Slayton, Darius Widera, Rebecca Daw, Ralph Bernstein adn kathleen Fix have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

Elaine Chew and Philip Greenspun’s research report "Is Suicide at MIT a Poisson Process?" is sobering, yet mathematically-based.

It is perhaps important to remind people that there is nothing intrinsically sad about the Poisson process. Some — Singfat Chu of the
                    National University of Singapore, for one — even find it sportingly inspirational.