Improbable Research

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.