Improbable Research

When Maurice Ward began tinkering with
chemicals in a ladies’ hairdressing salon he never dreamed he was on
the way to revolutionizing the American space program. All the
Middlesbrough hairdresser was trying to achieve was a flame retardant
wig but it eventually led to the discovery of a plastic that can stop a
nuclear blast.

So begins an April 1994 article in the Sunday Sun, written by Keith Dufton, about the inventor Maurice Ward. Mr. Ward’s work is echoed in the more recent — and more advanced — work of 1998 Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy Hurtubise, whose flameproof materials are said to be a wonder. The Discovery Channel film of him applying a blowtorch to his head is impressive.

(Thanks to David Crane of DefenseReview.com for bringing Maurice Ward to our attention.)

Sergei Speransky Institute of Hygiene in Novosibirsk is in the news again. A March 26, 2005 article in Pravda reports that:

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Sergei Speransky, is a very well known figure in Novosibirsk. The doctor became one of the authors of the shocking whipping therapy. The professor used the self-flagellation method to cure his own depression; he also recovered from two heart attacks with the help of physical tortures too.

Dr. Speransky is perhaps most famous for a paper about mice that he published more than a decade ago:

"Study of Human-Animal Communication at a Distance Between Moscow and Novosibirsk, L.M. Porvin, & S.V. Speransky, Parpsikhologiya i Psikhofizika [Parapsychology and Psychophysics]," vol. 9, no. 1, no. 1,1993), pp. 8-29. [in Russian]

(Thanks to Christine van der Aa for bringing Dr. Speransky to our attention.)

A special "Security Guard Research Review" –  which can (and is) described as "a look at some looks at those who stand guard" — appears in the special Security Issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

It is now 10 years since Sue Ziebland and Catherine Pope published their landmark report “The Use of the Colon in Titles of British Medical Sociology Conference Papers, 1970 to 1993″ ….

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

Peter Freundlich’s how-to study "Assessing Gluteal Hardness in Security Guards," appears in the special Security Issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. It begins:

Here is something that will almost certainly happen to you at some point in your life, if it hasn’t
happened repeatedly already: You will be engaged in what seems to you to be an entirely innocent
and unobjectionable activity when you feel a tap on your shoulder. Turning toward the tap, you
will fi nd yourself facing a Uniformed Private Security Guard (UPSG), who will inevitably say
one of two things — either “Do you have permission to do that?” or “You can’t do that here.”
The author of this study has often been an object of intense study by Uniformed Private Security Guards. In response, he has spent much time in turn studying them and their behavior. Here is the fruit of that study. Read it, and you will have a clear understanding of the concept of Gluteal Hardness. …

The re-Discovery Institute
says that its " primary focus is to extend and promote Design Theories, which have been so successful in Biology, to the fields of Chemistry, Astronomy, Physics and Geology."

Its greatest triumph, so far, is the revised periodic table of the elements:

The re-Discovery Institute is inspired partly by the supercharged discoveries announced by the Discovery Institute, an organization that seems to come up with its own novel, imaginitive take on all sorts of things great and small.

(Thanks to The Skeptical Inquirer and Mary O’Grady for bringing this to our attention.)

The May issue of mini-AIR
just went out. It includes news about the until-now-unreported Hawking Briefs scandal.

Peter Foster (of London’s Natural History Museum) is the author of

"The idiot’s guide to the zen of likelihood in a nutshell in seven days for dummies, unleashed — A gentle introduction, for those of us who are small of brain, to the calculation of the likelihood of molecular sequences."

(Thanks to Kristine Danowski and New Scientist’s Feeback for bringing this to our attention.)

What is the most double-edged name in the medical device industry? Maybe this: www.gotyournumber.com.

The web site is all about "The patented Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner." The scanner scans the palm of your hand, and then produces a number.
The manufacturer
has a nifty rock video on which a man says: "I guarantee that your number will go up!"

At least one dentist is very excited about this, and the device has drawn the attention of several connoisseurs of innovative medical devices.

It seems fair to say the people behind this product believe that (1) they understand what you want, and (2) they’ve got your number.

(Thanks to W.J. Maloney for bringing this to our attention.)

It’s old news to some, but as the headline says: "Finland receives first PhD in trolls." The degree was conferred

at and by Åbo Akademi University.

A glowing press release brings news of the end of the WISE (Women International Space Simulation for Exploration) bed-rest experiment:

The volunteers in question are twelve women, drawn from seven European
countries. Since March they have been confined to bed at the MEDES
(French Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology) space clinic in
Toulouse, in what is the longest female bedrest experiment ever
conducted within the European Community. … Beata summarises her experience as follows: "It has really enabled me to
have a much broader worldview, I really have learned so much. I now
have a better understanding of why we go into space."

The volunteers‘ adventures were monitored by a breathless international news media.

When novices talk about this wine or that, the more they talk, the more they’re talking baloney. An experiment has proved it.

Some experiments are more fun than others. This was one of the some. Joseph Melcher and Jonathan Schooler of the University of Pittsburgh carried it out, wrote it up and then published it in 1996 in the Journal of Memory and Language, to the mixed dismay and delight of the oenophile community….

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

"Beardless youth and grizzled geezers: usage of beards on thirteenth century gothic sculpture" is the topic of a seminar to be presented on May 19. Here are details, as announced by the organizers:

Seminar: Thursday, May l9, 2005, 7-9 PM

Location: Foothills Congregational Church, Los Altos
   
Speaker: Ann Jones
Topic: Beardless youth and grizzled geezers: usage of beards on thirteenth century gothic sculpture. In gothic sculpture, youth and age is indicated by absence or presence of beards. This is one of many rules on the usage of beards which everyone "knows." Does reality match this perception? Are there indeed rules with no known exceptions? Are there regional variations? Does sculpture follow fashion in facial hair? Does usage of beards depend on type of sculpture or its location? Major thirteenth century sculpture programs across Western Christendom are surveyed to establish the actual usage of beards. Analysis of several thousand individual sculptured heads and figures demonstrates what exists, and adds to what we "know."

We would enjoy hearing from anyone who attends this event.

Quagnets? Try Quirkle.

Finger-portion relative-length studies are in vogue again. Here is another exciting news flash.