Improbable Research

What do Joe Navarro, M.A., and John R. Schafer, M.A. say the FBI says about detecting that hard-to-define thing called deception? It’s a long story, and it’s in the July 2001 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. The fundamental thing, the possible key to it all, they imply, is this:

When individuals tell the truth, they often make every effort to ensure that other people understand. In contrast, liars attempt to manage others? perceptions.

Investigator Gary Dryfoos identifies a new trend in organic food, commenting “I have absolutely nothing to add to this, except perhaps extra sauce.” Details are in a February 17, 2006 in The Telegraph:

On the menu today: horse penis and testicles with a chilli dip

The menu at Beijing’s latest venue for its growing army of gourmets is eye-watering rather than mouth-watering.

China’s cuisine is renowned for being “in your face” - from the skinned dogs displayed at food markets to the kebabbed scorpions sold on street stalls - and there is no polite way of describing Guo-li-zhuang.

Situated in an elegantly restored house beside Beijing’s West Lake, it is China’s first speciality penis restaurant.

The news article has photographs, which are not reproduced here.

Investigator Ian Davis writes [from Melbourne, Australia]:

I don’t think I even begin to understand the full import of this editorial, let alone the article, but can anyone argue with my conclusion that God must have a great sense of humor? As if the giraffe and the platypus were not proof enough.

The editorial [or whatever it is], in the February 23, 2006 issue of Nature, begins:

To compute or not to compute?
by Jonathan P. Dowling

Quantum physics aims another blow at common sense: a simple quantum computer gives the right answer, even when it is not run. (Traditionalists be comforted: the computer must be turned on.) Is it possible to get a sensible answer from a computer without even running a program? Yes indeed, report Hosten et al. on page 949
of this issue ? and they have the experimental proof. The thread that leads thus far has its origin in the early 1990s, with the introduction of a quantum paradox known as…

The article is called “Counterfactual quantum computation through quantum interrogation.”

An Australian firm which is said to be located in Chatswood, New South Wales, and which may be called “O18″, and which perhaps exists, advertises a triumph of reverse engineering:

CHILLED DRINKING WATER

O18 uses our award winning ‘pressure chilling’ to extract the purest water from Australian fruit. Every drop is filtered through fruit — so O18 is the most naturally purified water on earth.

Thanks to Investigator Denise Braley for bringing this to our attention.)

Kees Moeliker, our European Bureau Chief, reports the latest about leaden sparrow research. (This is related only distantly to Jonathan Corum’s Python-inspired reseach report “Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow.”) Moeliker writes:

Ramallah, a city on the West Bank (Palestinian Authority) known best from the Israel-Palestinian conflict, was also the study area of K.M. Swaileh and R. Sansur, both researchers at the Birzeit University. They captured some house sparrows (under license from Palestinian Ministry for Environmental Affairs) from the Ramallah streets, and - as reported in their paper “Monitoring urban heavy metal pollution using the House Sparrow“, in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring (vol. 8, 2006, pp. 209-13): “birds were sacrified, put in plastic bags and deep-frozen for later analysis.” Subsequently the sparrows were dissected, various tissue samples were digested in super-pure nitric and perchloric acids, and analysed. Their results “provide some evidence for the potential of the house sparrow as a biomonitor for urban heavy metal pollution.” It should be noted that leaded fuel was still used in the Palestinian Territories at the time of the study.