Improbable Research

Young boys who are allowed to dress up as female characters could become better readers, it has been claimed. The assertion is made in “Boys and Reading,” a report published by the Centre for Language in Primary Education. The report’s joint author, Sue Pidgeon, suggests that boys are poorer readers than girls because their experiences are more limited. While girls are allowed to dress up as male and female characters, boys are discouraged from taking on female roles.

So says a May 7, 1999 BBC report.

(Thanks to investigator Rose Fox for bringing this to our attention.)

‘Teen Facts – Hormones’
Animated educative film showing a scientific experiment. For three minutes two kids are exposed to ten years of puberty.

Made for NEMO Science center ‘TeenFacts’ exhibition, running for the next five years.
Original version: Dutch – Shown here is the English translation

So says FonzTeeVee.

(Thanks to investigator Octavian Bruce for bringing this to our attention.)

A patented process takes ordinary hair color and makes it extraordinary, by adding self-illuminating glow! Voltage does not rely on UV, neon or black lights to create glow.

So say the purveyors of Voltage Self-Illuminating Hair Gel.

(Thanks to investigator Betsy Devine for bringing this to our attention.)

What are abstinence best sellers? Here is the definition according to the purveyor:

Our exclusive copyrighted products to promote sexual abstinence.

Examples of abstinence best-sellers are: ABSTINENCE ROSE PIN; ABSTINENCE DOG TAG; VD MOOD PENCILS; and STD CRAB.

Investigator Noor Mohammad Cheema writes:

I hate cockroaches and rats. After many experiments to get rid of them, I found several techniques . These techniques are to create fear in them — after you apply one of these techniques, the rats have no way except to leave that place immediately. One technique is very funny.

I have found that cockroaches have a great deal of sense. Ten years ago, when I shifted to a new apartment , there were a lot of cockroaches due to sewerage lines.

Whenever I saw them, I became sick emotionally, so I started fighting them with shoes. During those days, at night I kept the lights off in the kitchen and toilet rooms. At night and midnight, I made many raids by switching the lights on in the room. Then I started killing them with my shoes. I killed thousands of them.

After a month, I felt that the remaining cockroaches fully recognized me as a killer, They fear me. Whenever I came back home, if there are one or two in the room they quickly started hiding from me.

Can you imagine what pleasure I felt that I have a great terror on them after three months I have completely got rid off them.

I realized then and there that if somebody chases these things, in the end he wins.

As an unsupervised young chief trader in Singapore in 1995, Nicholas W. Leeson lost $1.3 billion in frenzied trades in Japanese stock futures and bonds, destroying his employer, the 233-year-old Barings Bank, which had Queen Elizabeth as a customer.Now, Mr. Leeson, having served four years in prison and survived a bout with colon cancer, has managed to turn those money-losing bets into a money-making enterprise ? warning bankers of their continuing vulnerability to rogue traders.

The paradox is that he is earning a very good living from a notorious past, getting ?5,000 ($9,800) a speech.

So says a December 26, 2006 New York Times report about Nick Leeson. The 1995 Ig Nobel Economics Prize was:

Awarded jointly to Nick Leeson and his superiors at Barings Bank
and to Robert Citron of Orange County, California, for using the
calculus of derivatives to demonstrate that every financial
institution has its limits.

(Thanks to Freakonomics for bringing this to our attention.)