Improbable Research

Dirt is on the minds of legislators in the American state of Georgia. Georgia Assembly bill #1443, co-sponsorted by six legislators, comes with the official description:

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Article 3 of Chapter 3 of Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to state symbols, so as to designate Georgia red clay as Georgia’s official dirt; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

(Thanks to Investigator Scott Langill for bringing this to our attention.)

How many mathematicians have beards?

If you want a rough approximation, survey the Oberwolfach Photo Collection of mathematicians. Do so before anyone else does, and you will be the first scholar to have accomplished this task in this way.

Olga Gurova studies the cultural history of underwear in the Soviet Union. “When I am talking about Soviet underwear,” she says, “I mean the underwear that appeared after the 1917 revolution.”

Dr Gurova is based at European University in St Petersburg. During the 2005-06 academic year she is visiting the US. Her lectures and writings are helping to fill the information gap that developed during the cold war….

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

ABC News reports (on February 22, 2006) a further discovery by the team that won the 2005 Ig Nobel Biology Prize:

Smelly Frogs Don’t Get Insect Bites

Researchers have found that some Australian frogs create their own insect repellent, resembling rotten meat and others roasted cashew nuts or thyme leaves.

The research team, which includes Associate Professor Mike Tyler of the University of Adelaide and entomologist Dr Craig Williams from James Cook University, has published its findings online in the journal Biology Letters….

To honor National Pancake Day, a February 22, 2006 Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World report remindingly raises and answers the baseline question:

How flat?: Research completed in 2003 proved what U.S. Interstate 70 drivers have suspected all along ? that Kansas is flatter than a pancake.

Researchers from Southwest Texas State and Arizona State universities analyzed the ups and downs of a flapjack and compared them with those of the state. The results were published in the Annals of Improbable Research.