Improbable Research

Sufficiently small animals cannot be hurt in a fall from any height: A monkey is too big, a squirrel is on the edge, but a mouse is completely safe. The mouse-sized people in Dr. Cyclops could have leapt off the tabletop with a cry of “Geronimo!” secure in the knowledge that they were too small to be hurt.

So says Michael C. LaBarbera in his study “The Biology of B-Movie Monsters.”

Why is Dasani – the British bottlers of which were honored with the 2004 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize — now on the lips of so many Canadians, in name if not in substance?

Perhaps it has to do with the combination of this July 17, 2006 headline in the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Dasani, IPO send Coca-Cola to surprise profit increase

and this October 30, 2006 report by Bloomberg News:

Bottled water is far more expensive than municipal water. A liter (33.8 ounces) of tap water in Canada costs taxpayers an average of less than one-10th of a cent, Toronto’s city government says. That means a liter of bottled water selling for C$2.50 is almost 3,000 times more expensive.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest bottler, uses municipal water from Calgary and Brampton, Ontario, for its Dasani brand. The company filters the water five times to remove chemicals, odors and bacteria, and adds minerals to improve the taste, spokeswoman Stephanie Baxter says.

That Ig Nobel citation explains that that 2004 prize was awarded to:

The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain, for using advanced technology to convert ordinary tap water into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers.

Investigator Chris McManus writes:

How’s this for a correction from this week’s Nature? All that number of authors and they still managed to leave 13 off… And can those thirteen be authors of the correction saying, “We inadvertently omitted the names of the following authors”. Is it possible to inadvertently omit one’s own name from a paper of which one is an author?

Here is the correction to which he refers:

Nature 443, 1013(26 October 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05152

Corrigendum: The DNA sequence and biological annotation of human chromosome 1

S. G. Gregory 1, K. F. Barlow 1, K. E. McLay 1, R. Kaul 1, D. Swarbreck 1, A. Dunham 1, C. E. Scott 1, K. L. Howe 1, K. Woodfine 1, C. C. A. Spencer 1, M. C. Jones 1, C. Gillson 1, S. Searle 1, Y. Zhou 1, F. Kokocinski 1, L. McDonald 1, R. Evans 1, K. Phillips 1, A. Atkinson 1, R. Cooper 1, C. Jones 1, R. E. Hall 1, T. D. Andrews 1, C. Lloyd 1, R. Ainscough 1, J. P. Almeida 1, K. D. Ambrose 1, F. Anderson 1, R. W. Andrew 1, R. I. S. Ashwell 1, K. Aubin 1, A. K. Babbage 1, C. L. Bagguley 1, J. Bailey 1, R. Banerjee 1, H. Beasley 1, G. Bethel 1, C. P. Bird 1, S. Bray-Allen 1, J. Y. Brown 1, A. J. Brown 1, S. P. Bryant 1, D. Buckley 1, D. C. Burford 1, W. D. H. Burrill 1, J. Burton 1, J. Bye 1, C. Carder 1, J. C. Chapman 1, S. Y. Clark 1, G. Clarke 1, C. Clee 1, S. M. Clegg 1, V. Cobley 1, R. E. Collier 1, N. Corby 1, G. J. Coville 1, J. Davies 1, R. Deadman 1, P. Dhami 1, O. Dovey 1, M. Dunn 1, M. Earthrowl 1, A. G. Ellington 1, H. Errington 1, L. M. Faulkner 1, A. Frankish 1, J. Frankland 1, L. French 1, P. Garner 1, J. Garnett 1, L. Gay 1, M. R. J. Ghori 1, R. Gibson 1, L. M. Gilby 1, W. Gillett 1, R. J. Glithero 1, D. V. Grafham 1, S. M. Gribble 1, C. Griffiths 1, S. Griffiths-Jones 1, R. Grocock 1, S. Hammond 1, E. S. I. Harrison 1, E. Hart 1, E. Haugen 1, P. D. Heath 1, S. Holmes 1, K. Holt 1, P. J. Howden 1, A. R. Hunt 1, S. E. Hunt 1, G. Hunter 1, J. Isherwood 1, R. James 1, C. Johnson 1, D. Johnson 1, A. Joy 1, M. Kay 1, J. K. Kershaw 1, M. Kibukawa 1, A. M. Kimberley 1, A. King 1, A. J. Knights 1, H. Lad 1, G. Laird 1, C. F. Langford 1, S. Lawlor 1, D. A. Leongamornlert 1, D. M. Lloyd 1, J. Loveland 1, J. Lovell 1, M. J. Lush 1, R. Lyne 1, S. Martin 1, M. Mashreghi-Mohammadi 1, L. Matthews 1, N. S. W. Matthews 1, S. McLaren 1, S. Milne 1, S. Mistry 1, M. J. F. M. oore 1, T. Nickerson 1, C. N. O’Dell 1, K. Oliver 1, A. Palmeiri 1, S. A. Palmer 1, R. D. Pandian 1, A. Parker 1, D. Patel 1, A. V. Pearce 1, A. I. Peck 1, S. Pelan 1, K. Phelps 1, B. J. Phillimore 1, R. Plumb 1, K. M. Porter 1, E. Prigmore 1, J. Rajan 1, C. Raymond 1, G. Rouse 1, C. Saenphimmachak 1, H. K. Sehra 1, E. Sheridan 1, R. Shownkeen 1, S. Sims 1, C. D. Skuce 1, M. Smith 1, C. Steward 1, S. Subramanian 1, N. Sycamore 1, A. Tracey 1, A. Tromans 1, Z. Van Helmond 1, M. Wall J. M. Wallis 1, S. White 1, S. L. Whitehead 1, J. E. Wilkinson 1, D. L. Willey 1, H. Williams 1, L. Wilming 1, P. W. Wray 1, Z. Wu 1, A. Coulson 1, M. Vaudin 1, J. E. Sulston 1, R. Durbin 1, T. Hubbard 1, R. Wooster 1, I. Dunham 1, N. P. Carter 1, G. McVean 1, M. T. Ross 1, J. Harrow 1, M. V. Olson 1, S. Beck 1, J. Rogers 1 and D. R. Bentley 1

Nature 441, 315?321 (2006)

We inadvertently omitted the names of the following authors: R. Banerjee, S. P. Bryant, D. C. Burford, W. D. H. Burrill, S. M. Clegg, P. Dhami, O. Dovey, L. M. Faulkner, S. M. Gribble, C. F. Langford, R. D. Pandian, K. M. Porter and E. Prigmore.

Philosopher-Accountant James Mahoney writes:

I used to think that mankind’s greatest achievements were narcotic pain relief (physical pain is horrible) and air conditioning (being cool and dry when it’s hot and humid is wonderful). Now I’m starting to think it’s the modern supermarket.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Investigator Robert Bendesky responds:

In 1976, Viktor Belenko, a Soviet pilot, flew his MiG-25 fighter into Japanese airspace, and defected to the West. He came to the US, and was set up with an apartment. The first thing he did in America was visit a modern supermarket.
He was overwhelmed at the quantity and quality of food items that were available. Aisles crammed with goods. Fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. And no long lines. He was sure that this was not typical; he believed that the CIA set up this elaborate store just to fool him, or possibly it was a special store for only the ruling class.

Belenko’s autobiograpy is called MIG Pilot.

(Research has shown that) if women could choose who they’d like to be impregnated by, they’d choose a rock star.

So says Daniel Levitin, musician and associate professor who holds the Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communication at McGill University, in an August 23, 2006 interview Wired News interview.

(Thanks to investigator Jim Cowdery for bringing this to our attention.)

How do porcupines make love? Wendy Cooper discovered the answer while poking around the basement of the Australian National University library in Canberra about five years ago. Cooper is a parasitologist. She studies parasites, not porcupines. She also, in the course of her work, studies scientific journals. That was how she acquired her professional knowledge of porcupines’ prickly procreation procedures.

Cooper found two studies written (one with co-authors) by Albert Shadle, of the University of Buffalo, New York, in 1946….

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