Improbable Research

A news report [you must be a subscriber of C&EN to read it, though] in the September 19, 2005 issue of Chemical & Engineering news says that:

The Swiss government has installed singing urinals in Switzerland’s public lavatories to help diagnose prostate problems. The urinals are powered by sensors that can tell if the stream of urine is satisfactorily strong. If so, the urinal starts to sing the European football cheer “Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole.” If not, a recorded message advises the user to go see a doctor.

(Thanks to Jeff Dougan for bringing this to our attention.)

Though it looks like an action multiple-exposure photo of a spitball nailing an especially good target  a photo by Peter den Hartog simply — well, maybe not so simply — shows an eclipse of the moon seen in Madrid.

Two of the most mathematically-adept Ig Prize winners — Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling — go on trial today in Houston, Texas. A CBS News report today says:

Lay and Skilling, almost literally, are the last men standing; the last Enron executives at the center of the scandal who have not pleaded guilty, had their own trials, or cut their own deals with the feds. They are both poster boys for what the company did for the City when times were flush, and then did to the City as it all unraveled.

The pair were honored in 2002, when that year’s Ig Nobel Economics Prize was awarded to:

The executives, corporate directors, and auditors of Enron, Lernaut & Hauspie, Adelphia, Bank of Commerce and Credit International, Cendant, CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Gazprom, Global Crossing, HIH Insurance [Australia], Informix, Kmart, Maxwell Communications, McKessonHBOC, Merrill Lynch, Merck, Peregrine Systems, Qwest Communications, Reliant Resources, Rent-Way, Rite Aid, Sunbeam, Tyco, Waste Management, WorldCom, Xerox, and Arthur Andersen, for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world.

We have just posted some photos from last year (2005)’s Ig Nobel Tour of the UK.

The schedule for this year’s tour — which will happen in March, for National Science Week — is taking shape, with shows in Oxford, St. Andrews, Warrington and London, and more to be announced. (If your institution would like to host an event — especially if you are in Edinburgh or London — please get in touch with us ASAP).

There is now a scholarly journal devoted to plagiarism, or at least to the study of plagiarism. Called Plagiary, it boasts an academically lurid tagline: "Cross-disciplinary studies in plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification."

One way or another, it makes for good copy. Scott McLemee’s fairly juicy Inside Higher Ed essay published January 25, 2006, mulls the background and place of this new publication.

(Thanks to investigator Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.)

ABC News reports that:

Roo poo used to make paper
Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online

Friday, 18 February 2005
Paper made from kangaroo and wallaby dung has shot an Australian paper company into the global spotlight.

Joanna Gair, manager of handmade paper company Creative Paper Tasmania, says production of ‘roo poo paper’ only started in the past two weeks but she has been thinking about the idea for some time.

"I’ve been inspired by the African paper makers who’ve created an enormous industry out of elephant dung paper," she says. "I thought we needed an Australian version."

The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) has six new members — three of each sex, but imperfectly balanced across the southern and northern hemispheres.

England’s reputation for bad food is unfair. It distracts from the country’s reputation for bad music. Emily Cockayne, formerly at Oxford University and now an associate lecturer with the Open University, is doing her bit to correct the imbalance.

Cockayne studied the two centuries she believes were crucial for establishing Britain as a vibrant producer of boiler-factory-quality music. Her complacency-rattling report, "Cacophony, or Vile Scrapers on Vile Instruments: Bad Music in Early Modern English Towns", appeared in 2002 in the journal Urban History….

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

Actor Dick Van Patten has a line of cat food and dog food, which, if the ads are not misleading, he finds quite tasty.

Dean Kamen holds 150 patents. He invented the Segway, oversees a national high school robotics competition. Owns his own island, even, in the Long Island Sound.

So it may seem strange and slightly sad that he found himself drinking his own pee last year in South Carolina.

Hold it: Things aren’t as bleak as they sound….

So begins a December 14, 2005 report in the Newport Daily News.

(Thanks to IP Funny for bringing this to our attention.)

Phil Weidinger, publicist and organizer of Operation Sierra Storm, the educational conference for TV weather forecasters, is excited that we wrote about his event. Mr. Weidinger is disappointed, though, that we underplayed the educational value of the event’s keynote speaker, Michael D. Brown (we had not elaborated much beyond saying that “Television weather forecasters have much to learn from him”). Mr. Weidinger writes:

Do you have any responsibility to find out why Michael D. Brown was invited to be a speaker at Operation Sierra Storm? Or what topics his presentation was covering. Or that he’d be facing the media during a Q&A re: Katrina for the first time since he left FEMA.

Or is it OK that as a blogger, you can just you ignorantly pop-off. Any ass can do that. How about making some effort, demonstrate some professionalism and take some time to know what you’re writing about. It sure would make for a better read.

Before you run down everyone associated with the event in one fell swoop, get the facts. It would certainly help your credibility. But then, why would you care?

Phil Weidinger
Weidinger PR
Conference Organizer

Investigator Ian Davis of The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research writes:

One of our scientists, Juliet Quirk, found this rather alarming method requiring ant sperm.  It begs the question of how to obtain 1 millilitre of ant sperm. I initially thought about teeny tiny centerfolds, with great care in placement of the staple, but apparently the optimal source is the ant queen who stores away as much stock as she needs.

Who is:

(A.) Venus Williams?
B. Venus Williams?

Is Venus Williams:

(A.) a top-rank tennis player?
(B.) a Dartmouth College mathematician?
(C.) the author of "The Mathematics Of The Coordinated And Precise Dance That Keeps Us Alive"?

(Thanks to investigator Tom Roberts for bringing this to our attention.)

The artist Jim Opasik for some reason, or in the absence of any, assembled cheese graters into the form of a seahorse.

This anti-cheesy creature is on exhibit at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts in Napa, California.

Investigator Robert Webb

wrote, on May 3, 2005 (though it took us a while to post it here):

"I made 16 sandwiches which covered the variables discussed in the November 23, 2004 Slate magazine article, which said:

With a winning bid of $28,000, the online casino GoldenPalace.com won the auction for one of eBay’s most coveted oddities: a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich, one side of which bears the Virgin Mary’s image. The seller, Diana Duyser of Hollywood, Fla., claims that the sandwich never sprouted a single spore of mold, despite having been stored in a less-than-airtight plastic box. Is it possible for a decade-old sandwich to remain mold-free without divine intervention?

"The variables were: cheese vs. no cheese, margarine vs. no margarine, store-bought vs. bakery bread, and grilling vs. no grilling. The results were that if the sandwich had been grilled then it would, on average, mold 47 days later, if store-bought bread would have been used it would mold 27 days later and margarine added 15 days to the time to mold.  Adding cheese, however, took 15 days off the time to mold. The last 3 sandwiches did not mold and are not likely to mold ever because they are rock hard."