Improbable Research

It’s the headline someone at the University of Oxford press office could not resist writing:

Great tits challenge evolutionary theory

(Thanks to investigator Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.)

Investigator Claudiu I. Muntele writes, “Doing some literature search I came across this entry and I thought you could use it for something”:

SEXUAL FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION ? ABSTRACT
The Journal of Urology, Volume 164, Issue 5, November 2000, Pages 1851-1859
Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel, Allen Seftel et al.

Here are today’s Science-Reporting-Quotes-of-the-Day. Both are from an article by Jennifer Kahn in the October 22, 2006 issue of the New York Times:

Working on pig flesh at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Anderson found that fat cells exposed to a 1210-nanometer beam absorbed twice as much energy as skin cells did.

and

Then there?s the “clenching? factor: “When the buttock is tensed, the cellulite on it will look worse,” says Dr. Leonard Miller, a plastic surgeon affiliated with Harvard Medical School. “When I look at these images, I often notice that the buttock in the ‘before’ photo is slightly tensed. It makes a difference.”

A new experiment (which may be inspired by the work of 1998 Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy Hurtubise) demonstrates the comparative value of print books:

One of Oklahoma’s nominees for state superintendent of education has proposed a unique idea for protecting students from outbreaks of violence. Bill Crozier, a Union City Republican going against incumbent Democrat Sandy Garrett, said he believes old textbooks could be used to stop bullets shot from weapons wielded by school intruders.

If elected, he said he would put thick used textbooks under every desk for students to use in self-defense.

He gave Eyewitness News 5 a videotape showing he and others shooting weapons, such as an AK-47 and a 9 mm pistol, at books in a field near Minco. They conducted the experiment to see how far bullets would penetrate the books.

So says an October 18, 2006 report by Oklahoma City television station KOCO Channel 9.

(Thanks to investigator Joe Berg for bringing this to our attention.)

Someone video-recorded a pelican consuming a pigeon.

Kees Moeliker, our European Bureau Chief and the curator of birds at the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam, examined the video, did some research, and explains that:

According to the Handbook of the Birds of the World, the seven species of pelicans known to the world feed almost exclusively on fish. It is only the Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) that is know to take an occasional bird, like a gull or a duck. The bird in this video is the American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) living in an urban park, obviously tame and it may have been fed a (dead) pigeon ? like feeding bread to ducks ? as the actual prey capture is not shown on the video. The live pigeons in this video do come dangerously close to the pelicans, so I am inclined to conclude that this is ‘The first videoed case of predation on a pigeon (Columba livia) by a tame American white pelican’.

(Thanks to investigator Jessica Girard for bringing the video to our attention.)