Improbable Research

Just as beds are infested with dust mites, my July 19, 2005 column in The Guardian was infested with little errors. There were at least two:

J.E.M.H. van Bronswijk, author of "A Bed Ecosystem," is a her, not a him. I apologize to Professor van Bronswijk. This was plainly, simply an error on my part.

H.R. Sesay’s co-author of  "Studies on the Mite Fauna of House Dust in Scotland With Special Reference to That of Beddings" is not R.H Dobson.  R.H. Dobson is married to, but is an entirely distinct person from, R.M. Dobson. This, too, was an error on my part, and a slightly more complicated one. (Here’s how I managed to unmeritoriously adopt the error and make it my own. I first encountered the Sesay/Dobson study as a citation in another paper, K. Solarz’s "Seasonal Dynamics of House Dust Mite Populations in Bed/Mattress Dust From Two Dwellings in Sosnowiec (Upper Silesia, Poland): An Attempt to Assess Exposure."  The reference list of the Solarz paper includes this citation:
"41. Sesay HR, Dobson RH: Studies on the mite fauna of house dust in Scotland with special reference to that of beddings. Acarologia 1972, 14, 384-392.") My apologies to the Dobsons!

–Marc

There be foul-mouthed birds in Britain. An article in the July 27, 2005 issue of The Times reports:

Parrot placed in solitary for swearing at vicar
By Jenny Booth, Times Online

A foul-mouthed parrot who stands on top of his cage shouting rude words at passers-by has been isolated after swearing at the mayoress, a lady vicar and two police officers.

Barney the blue and gold Macaw has been placed in solitary confinement by his mortified keepers after he used some extremely choice language.

Stacey Clark, who works at Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary in Nuneaton, said that the bird had been handed in by a lorry driver three years ago when the man was emigrating to Spain.

"We don’t know who taught him the words, but he seems to have a problem with authority figures," said Ms Clark. …

This is consonant with a November 27, 2002 news report from the BBC:

Parrot gives parishioners the bird

A foul-mouthed parrot is ruffling a few feathers after setting up home in a West Yorkshire churchyard.

The vicar has received complaints from people who have become targets for verbal abuse from the exotic bird. The mischievous African grey parrot called Charlie has been living with a flock of pigeons in the bell-tower at St Mary’s Church in Mirfield. Three-year-old Charlie regularly turns the air blue by swearing and wolf-whistling at passers-by. …

Holes seem simple enough, until you examine them closely. Marco Bertamini and Camilla Croucher peered at one particular aspect. Their study, called The Shape of Holes, appeared in the journal Cognition. In it, they say: "We discuss the many interesting aspects of holes as a subject of study in different disciplines, and predict that much insight especially about shape will continue to come from holes."…

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

This note arrived today:

Hi.  I was wondering how I can get tickets to this year’s ceremony.  I am currently a patent examiner at the US Patent and Trademark Office, and I am leaving to come to Boston to attend Harvard Law School.  One of Harvard’s draws for me was that it’s the site of the fabulous Ig Nobel Prizes, which I’ve been a big fan of for quite some time.  Whom do I have to bribe/kiss up to/sacrifice my first born to in order to secure a seat?

Much thanks,
Daniel

The answer is that one can do all of that, but the simplest thing is to get in touch with the Harvard Box Office on August 5. That’s the day the tickets go on sale.

[NOTE: In his response to our response to him, Daniel asked that we not include his last name in this posting, saying "I don't need every correspondence I've ever written Google-able."]

The July issue of mini-AIR
just went out. It settles (in a cursory way) the Stroop vs. Smoot debate, ponders pencils, and suggests a Koffka/Kafka komparison, among other things.

This week’s selection in our READING FOR PLEASURE series is  Kaie Kotov‘s "Semiosphere: A chemistry of being."