Improbable Research

A team led by fertility expert Dr. Shevah Friedler at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center studied 186 women aged 25 to 40 over 10 months, all of whom were undergoing embryo transfer treatment. While half were simply given the treatment and nothing else, the other group was entertained by a clown for up to 15 minutes as they recuperated in bed after the treatment.

The results? 33 of the women who ‘clowned’ around became pregnant, compared to only 18 women in the control group….

“We were very surprised by the results. And frankly, I can’t explain it,” said Friedler.

He presented the findings before the Israel Fertility Association meeting in May and submitted an abstract to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) that met this month in Geneva, resulting in a high profile response from colleagues and the media.

So says a June 22, 2006 report in Israel21C.

(Thanks to investigators Diana Lutz and Karen Hopkin for bringing this to our attention.)

(NOTE: “inexplicacality” may not be a recognized word, but it seems to be the correct word for this phenomenon.)

The medical advice “Don’t stand in an open field during a lightning storm” may be too old-fashioned. A letter in the June 24, 2006 issue of BMJ brings it up to date:

Injury from lightning strike while using mobile phone

Editor—We report the case of a 15 year old girl who was witnessed being struck by lightning while using her mobile phone in a large park in London during stormy weather…. To our knowledge, no similar cases have been reported in the medical literature….

This rare phenomenon is a public health issue, and education is necessary to highlight the risk of using mobile phones outdoors during stormy weather to prevent future fatal consequences from lightning strike injuries related to mobile phones.

The letter was signed by Swinda Esprit, Prasad Kothari and Ram Dhillon (seen in the phto here) of the Northwick Park Hospital in Middlesex, U.K.

Dr. Kothari, of course, is also co-author of the classic “Application of cocaine to the nasal mucosa: a novel method” [Journal of Laryngology and Otology, 2001 Aug;115(8):650-1.]
(Thanks to investigator David Holzman for bringing this to our attention.)

Added fuel expense (due to drag) turns out to but one of who-knows-how-many hazards incurred by flag-flying, auto-owning fans of England’s World Cup team. Here is another, reported by the BBC on June 21, 2006:

Monkey gangs steal England flags

A safari park in Merseyside is urging patriotic football fans to remove England flags from their vehicles to stop gangs of baboons pinching them. Bosses at Knowsley Safari Park say the 120-strong troop of baboons usually swipe windscreen wipers but have turned to stealing World Cup flags instead.

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

A research project in Turkey examined whether and how drinking affects the quality of one’s writing. This was “hard”, rather then “soft” science - it ignored anything fuzzy and hard-to-measure, such as the literary quality of the writing, or its emotional content. The experiment focused, with great discipline, on something that can be more objectively gauged: the extent to which drinking makes people’s penmanship go wobbly.

The goal: to establish that a sometimes-suspect criminal justice tool is dependable, accurate and precise.

Faruk Acolu, of the Council of Forensic Medicine, Istanbul, and Nurten Turan, of the University of Istanbul, published their study, “Handwriting Changes Under the Effect of Alcohol“, in the journal Forensic Science International…

…

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

Is it totally nerdy/creepy/loser-ish of me to say that I feel strangely compelled to send this guy an email and say hi? I also wonder if other people are looking at this entry and thinking the same thing.

So writes the blogger known as Stochasticgirl, referring to recent Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists inductee Vicente Martinez.

(Thanks to investigators Donna N. and Thalia D. Borland — who write that they are “both totally in resonance with Stochasticgirl’s intentions” — for bringing this to our attention.)