Improbable Research

"Before the Big Band, there was no space or time."

So says what we presume, or at least hope, is a typo. It appears in a curious press release issued by the University of Helsinki. The press release is curious in that it’s not clear why the university decided to write or issue it.

ADDENDA: (1) That press release directs anyone seeking more information to go to the web site of Kari Engqvist. (2) After this item appeared, we heard from Bob O’Hara of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Helsinki. He wrote:

I went to a Christmas party in the physics building in the University of Helsinki last year.  As I recall, there was no big band.  There was, however karaoke.

Bob

P.S. Perhaps we should forgive Prof. Enqvist.  He works in a building called Physicum.  I work next door, in a building called Exactum.  This means, I think, that they are assumed to work with a certain amount of imprecision.

British Military Planned Chicken-Powered Nuke
A once secret plan to build a nuclear landmine ‘run’ by live chickens has gone on public display for the first time at The National Archives, Kew, as part of the acclaimed Secret State Exhibition.

Conceived during the Cold War, the seven tonne device was the size of small truck and was designed to be buried or submerged by a British Army retreating from Soviet forces. The landmine had a plutonium core surrounded by high explosive and would have been detonated by remote control or timer, causing mass destruction and contamination over a wide area to prevent subsequent enemy occupation.

Scientists working on the project realised that the bomb could fail in winter if vital components become too cold, so they explored ways of keeping the inner workings warm. One proposal put forward consisted of filling the casing of the nuke with live chickens, who would give off sufficient heat, prior to suffocating or starving to death, to keep the delicate explosive mechanism from freezing. Despite the potential importance of chickens to the project, the mine was codenamed ‘Blue Peacock’.

So says a press release issued last year by the British National Archives

We at the Annals of Improbable Research have a large collection of puzzle solutions to which we have lost the puzzles. There seemed no reason not to publish them. The first organized collection appears in the March/April 2005 issue of the magazine.

Investigator J.L. Rincon writes:

Having lived most of my life in Argentina, but spent much of the past five years in North America and Europe, I will have you know that no great educational institution suffers more — and more unjustly! — from its name than the Universidad de Moron. From afar, though, I must admit that I now understand why this happens. As an Argentinian, I sigh. But as a citizen of the world, I chuckle.

Possibly with the tacit approval or disapproval of a distinguished colleague, Dr. Ken Longenecker of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

So, too, has Josh Newby, the perhaps-soon-to-be-famous graduate student in physical chemistry at Purdue University.

Paul Ionescu of the University of Florence and his multitudinous curls of hair have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

Dr. Stephen White of Cranfield University led a study to ascertain which is the world’s smelliest cheese. So says a press release issued not so long ago. Those who are so inclined can download a zip file of images pertaining to this disturbingly delightful concept.

(Thanks to Mark Waldstein for bringing this to our attention.)

Yawning sometimes occurs in school, where it can be of great appeal to the experimentalist. A yawn is rather alluring. It invites anyone - anyone of a certain sensibility, that is - to try teasing out its secrets. Joseph E Moore of the Jesup Psychological Laboratory at George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee was a pioneer in this….

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

This week’s selection in our READING FOR PLEASURE series is "Totality of Semiosphere," by Sergey V. Chebanov.

Today’s random psychological test of the day is the Leonard Nimoy Should Eat More Salsa Foundation (LNSEMSF).

(Thanks to Terri Fackler for bringing this to our attention.)

Mathematician Stanley Eigen (yes, that is his real name) wrote a beautiful, brief tribute to his late colleague, the legendary Shizuo Kakutani. Called "The Lost Theorems of Kakutani," it appears in the March/April 2005 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

Olga Kubassova of the University of Leeds and Eric Walters of the newly renamed Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

Mathematics student Sam Hughes, whose global thinking was mentioned here a few days ago, has also produced a venn diagram that explains everything — and yet, somehow, hardly anything — about Great Britain.

Here’s a pointer to the Archives of Natural History, where the sea serpent paper by 2002 Ig Nobel Prize winner Charles Paxton, Sharon Hedley and Erik Knatterud is scheduled to be published this week. (Knatterud is, among other things, the keeper of the Database of Norwegian Sea Serpents and Paxton of the history-packed Aquatic Sea Monsters web site.) Several readers asked for details after we mentioned it in mini-AIR. To recapitulate, the study is:

"Cetaceans, Sex and Sea Serpents: An Analysis of the  Egede
Accounts of a ‘Most Dreadful Monster’ Seen Off  the Coast of
Greenland in 1734," C.G.M. Paxton, E. Knatterud and S.L. Hedley,
Archives of Natural History, vol. 32, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1-9. The
authors report that:

[T]here is an alternative explanation for the [reported
sighting of a] serpent-like tail. Many of the large  baleen
whales have long, snake-like penises. If the animal did
indeed fall  on its back then its ventral surface would have
been uppermost and, if the whale was aroused,  the usually
retracted penis would have been visible. The penises of the
North Atlantic right  whale and (Pacific) grey whale can be
at least 1.8 metres long, and 1.7 metres long respectively,
and could be taken by  a naive witness for a tail.

Investigator David McA. McKirdy writes:

I would like to bring to your attention John Gillatt of Bolton,
Manchester, England.

He recently hit the headlines in the UK after getting
lost in the Malaysian rain forest for 5 days without a
map or compass, or any other basic survival material.
To cap it all he said that "he did not realise there
were leopards in the jungle, poisonous snakes and
tarantulas."

Not bad for someone describes as an "English
biologist".

The intrepid Mr. Bolton is profiled in the The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and elsewhere, including his own web site.