Improbable Research

Today’s (today being November 15, 2006) Chronicle of Higher Education includes a job ad that is, in its way, educational. It suggests the thought: “No wonder students’ geography scores are so low.”

Basenjis are “known as ‘the barkless dog from Africa’… Although they do not bark, they have a large vocabulary of squeaks, cries, and a loud yawn.” So says the group called Basenji Companions. The group disseminates a recording of an avante garde musical performance called “Basenji Howling Accompanied by Flute.”

A 13-year-old girl said to be shedding tears of stone is being treated at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences here.

Savitri Kumari, hailing from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, was examined by doctors at the Rajendra Prasad Centre for Opthalmic Sciences (RP Centre) at the AIIMS, who has been suffering from the unusual ailment for the past two years.

“We have examined her and called her for a detailed examination by a team of experts tomorrow,” RP Centre Medical Superintendent Shakti Kumar Gupta said.

He said the doctors at the AIIMS were curious to check this strange ailment.

So says an August 30, 2006 Times of India report.

Investigator John Cawley of Cornell University writes (a while ago — it’s just now bubbling to the surface of our pile):

I’m going to shamelessly nominate myself for the Ig Noble Prize in Economics for my paper “Body Weight and the Dating and Sexual Behaviors of Young Adolescents”, which appears as Chapter 6 in Robert T. Michael (editor), Social Awakening: Adolescent Behavior as Adulthood Approaches, 2001, (Russell Sage: New York) for proving that heavier teenage girls are less likely to date.

Thank you for your consideration,
John Cawley

Investigator Cawley’s study has also been published separately:

“Size Matters: The Influence of Adolescents? Weight and Height on Dating and Sex,” John Cawley, Kara Joyner and Jeffery Sobal, Rationality and Society, vol. 18, no. 1, 2006, pp. 67-94.

Investigator Wolter Seuntjens spied an intriguing research tidbit (in Sven Speybrouck & Koen Fillet, Jongens & Wetenschap 2. Roeselare [Belgium]: Globe, 2003, p. 406):

In Josette De Cock the Royal Academy for Boys and Science incorporates its first animal trainer. Josette has shared her life for the past fifty years with a tortoise. For half a century she has winked at the beast and ten years ago this tenacity was rewarded: the tortoise winked back at her. Mrs. De Cock, welcome in the Royal Academy for Boys and Science. And do keep up talking to your pet. Who knows, one day?

Met Josette De Cock lijft de Koninklijke Academie voor Jongens & Wetenschap haar eerste dierentemmer in. Josette deelt al 50 jaar lief en leed met een schildpad. Een halve eeuw heeft ze dagelijks naar het beest geknipoogd en tien jaar geleden is die vasthoudendheid beloond: de schildpad knipoogde terug. Mevrouw De Cock, welkom in de KAJW. En vooral: blijven praten met uw huisdier. Wie weet, ooit op een dag?