Improbable Research

Applied methodology is the bee’s knees. Applied methodology is bling-bling. Applied methodology is a phrase that’s cropping up everywhere. It’s a big, red banner waving gaily in the breeze, telling you something. It tells you that someone likes to use the phrase "applied methodology". This is useful to know….

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

Mark Nelssen has produced a mostly matter-of-factual video about intestinal gas.

One of the great underlooked works of literature is "The Quest for Alfred E. Neuman," by Carl Djerassi.

A new animal form has been patented. Some biologists may find it difficult to classify.

We’ve had many requests about film of Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy Hurtubise, the man who built and personally tested a suit of armor meant to be impervious to grizzly bears. The National Film Board of Canada has just prepared a DVD version of its feature film documentary Project Grizzly, which is all about Troy.

Penn Gillette, a man not given to hyperbole except when he chooses to be, once described this film to us as "the best documentary ever made." We’re not sure we’d disagree.

"Who watches the watchers?" becomes an especially interesting question when the watchers are psychotic. A team of doctors from Texas and California explored that question in 1993 in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. Their names are JA Silva, GB Leong and R Weinstock. Their study is called The Psychotic Patient as Security Guard….

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

Jerry Andrus’s head-turning dragon, though made from mere cut-and-folded paper, is truly a head-turner. It was designed in honor of Martin Gardner. You can download a PDF version, and cut and fold yourself an object that will startle visitors.

Thanks to Martin G of ohpurleese.com for reminding us about the enlightening press release , issued in the year 2000, about University of Illinois Professor Brian Wansink’s reported discovery that “people’s soup choices reflect their personality types.”

Computer science cognoscenti know what Ping is, and also know that Mike Muuss is the proud author of same.

(Thanks to Dan Piette for bringing this to our attention.)

Veterinarians must learn, somehow, to examine the inside of a cow. The definition of "somehow" is now broader than it used to be, thanks to Sarah Baillie’s haptic cow hind simulator at the University of Glasgow. The official description of this device is almost lyrical:

Veterinary students are trained to palpate the bovine reproductive tract in order to perform pregnancy diagnosis and fertility examinations. These are difficult procedures to learn and require considerable practice to identify structures accurately. The teaching takes place both at university and during extramural studies (EMS) on farms with veterinary surgeons and students need to examine as many cows as possible to get the opportunity to develop skills adequately by the time of graduation. With regard to teaching, when a student is examining a cow the teacher is unable to observe the student’s technique inside the cow and therefore, it can be difficult to instruct the student in the procedure.

Here is a brief guide to some unfortunate explosions of a particular type. The details sit quietly in back issues of medical journals. Only occasionally does anyone come to see them. The visitor is, in most cases, either a doctor in sudden need of information or a scholar in search of violent titillation….

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

The "Puzzling Solutions" column in the special Security Issue of the Annals of Improbable Research presents several more from our collection of puzzle solutions to which we have lost the puzzles.

"Genealogists want psychotherapy to be made available for people who stumble across unpleasant discoveries while researching their family history." This statement, with copious supporting detail, is in a report in the April 17, 2005 issue of The Daily Telegraph.

(Thanks to Juanita Browne for bringing this to our attention.)

Ice spikes can, and do, form in freezer ice cube trays. The how and why of it are now fairly clear, thanks to research carried out by K. G. Libbrecht and K. Lui at the Caltech Physics Department.

There is the pre-print (it’s not clear where and when it will become a post-preprint) of Libbrecht and Lui’s study.

(Thanks to Hannah Pendergrast for bringing this to our attention.)

Investigator Carol Springs writes to clarify an item in the June issue of mini-AIR:

One point that dozens of others have probably made by now, but just in case:
>> "Ig Nobel Prizes" was a
>> category on the June 1, 2005
>> broadcast of the television program
>> "Jeopardy." Contestants were presented
>> with the following answers:
>>      karaoke   
>>      a car alarm
>>      Michael Milken
>>      Sun Myung Moon
>>      Ron Popeil
These just looked *wrong* somehow.  Were contestants supposed to guess the Ig Nobel prize category, or what?  Then, when I went to the specified Web site, I realized — these were the *questions*, not the answers!  As we all know, the questions come in response to the answers on Jeopardy.  The site in, er, question left out the "What is …" and "Who is …" for brevity’s sake.
A little poking around revealed a more coherent page:
    http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=357
If you pass your mouse cursor over the prize amount you see the answer, I mean the question.

Too bad two locals [contestants who are natives of Massachusetts, where the Ig Nobel Ceremony is held] were stumped on most of these!  Clearly they should’ve been attending the ceremonies, as we do nearly every year.