Improbable Research

Daniel Stern has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I’m particularly proud of my description in an article for the North County Times (serving San Diego and Riverside Counties):

“Now, joining us in the dimly lit library, is a man with jet-black, Einstein-like disheveled hair, the astronomer who would be observing that night. He is the soft-spoken and unassuming Daniel Stern from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.”

Daniel Stern, Ph.D.
Astronomer
Jet Propulsion Lab
Caltech
Pasadena, California, USA

(Click on the photo to see more detail.)

Investigator Betsy Devine writes:

As I drank morning coffee, still half asleep, I heard Frank upstairs simply roaring with laughter at his email, which (I later discovered) included this YouTube video of live-action bloopery.

Making a long story short, a grad student or taxi driver (I’ve seen two versions) named Guy Goma was whisked into a BBC studio where a young woman interviewer informed her live TV audience that they would now be hearing from technology expert Guy Kewney.

Guy Goma’s expression, as he hears himself thus introduced, goes from pleasant acceptance to surprise and shock at amazing speed.

But what’s more remarkable is his grace and good humor, as he responds in French-accented English (he’s from the Congo) to the interviewer, to avoid embarassing her while in front of the camera.

Being put on the spot in front of live cameras is the kind of thing that happens in nightmares. Thanks to Guy Goma, I now have a warm-hearted, dignified role model for what I ought to do next.

It turned out that Mr. Goma was wrongly in the right place at the right time through no great fault of his own. He was at the BBC for a job interview. We do not know whether he was subsequently offered a job, nor, if so, whether he accepted.
(Thanks to investigator Adiyasa Dwitama for the follow-up info.)

World Cup urticaria (described in our Guardian column earlier this week) is not the only problem that afflicts English football fans. A May 31, 2006 report in the Daily Record says:

?1.2M DRAG TO FLY THE FLAG

ENGLISH motorists flying the flag of St George on their cars during the World Cup will shell out ?1.2million in extra fuel costs, experts say.

Scientists say the extra drag generated by the mini-flags could reduce a car’s fuel economy by three per cent during a one-hour journey….

Researcher Dr Antonio Filippone said: “Half a million cars with these flags attached will burn a total of 1.22 million litres of fuel during the World Cup.”

(Thanks to investigator Adiyasa Dwitama for bringing this to our attention.)

Brides and grooms and wedding planners needn’t agonize too, too much about the wedding feast. They can, instead, gain insight from reading Karim Vahed’s review of many little things that matter:

“The function of nuptial feeding in insects: a review of empirical studies,” Karim Vahed, Biological Reviews, vol. 73, 1998, pp. 43-78.

Professor Vahed is part of the Insect Reproduction Research Group in the Division of Biological Sciences at the School of Environmental and Applied Sciences at the University of Derby.