Improbable Research

Robert Hancock has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I love this kind of thing. And drink. And vitamin C.

Simon Scott, who nominated him, adds:

He’s expecting his first child in two weeks time, by his wife. This nomination will be his enduring legacy.

His current research involves the physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology of vitamin C accumulation in blackcurrant fruit, and the physiological, biochemical and molecular characterisation of tuberisation in potato.

Robert Hancock, LFHCfS
Research Leader
Invergowrie, Dundee
Scotland, United Kingdom

(Click on the photo to see more detail.)

Peanut butter inspires its own kind of logic. So one must conclude from watching Chuck Missler explain the relationship between peanut butter and something (it is difficult for a layperson or a scientist to determine what) he calls “evolution.” Missler’s video is about two minutes long.

Chuck says he is the former Branch Chief of the Department of Guided Missiles for the U.S. Air Force.

He helped inspire the authors of our study “The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth” (and its German-language version, “Der Einflu? von Erdnu?butter auf die Erdrotation“).

Chuck is redefining religion, science, and technology, setting a standard for others to emulate.

(Thanks to investigators Al Rollins and Gert Toner for bringing Mr. Missler to our attention.)

UPDATE: Investigator Arun Gridhar writes in support of Chuck Missler’s rival, Kirk Cameron. Cameron disdains the use of peanut butter in his proofs. Cameron is a banana man.

Parul Kamdar has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. She says [on June 5, 2007, updating the earlier version of her entry]:

I assist the law firm of King & Spalding LLP in preparing and prosecuting patent applications directed to lighting systems. I also have experience in preparing and prosecuting patent applications directed to drilling compositions and equipment, chemical processes, biotechnology, and other mechanical and chemical technologies. I have a background in chemical engineering and experience with carpet dye recycling, transdermal drug delivery using microfabricated needles, polymer chemistry and fabrication, adipose tissue engineering, and bioreactors.

Parul Kamdar, PhD, LFHCfS
Patent Agent
King & Spalding L.L.P.
Houston, Texas, USA

(Click on the photo to see more detail.)

Smokers make poorer workers
Smokers perform worse at work than non-smokers, finds a study of US navy female service members published in Tobacco Control.

Smokers were also more likely to have a less than honourable discharge, to be demoted, to desert, and to earn less than their non-smoking colleagues, the study showed.

So says a March 28, 2007 press release about the study. The press release does not directly identify the study, the issue in which is published, or any of the scientists associated with it.

The press release does, at the end, indirectly raise some good questions. Does smoking cause people to be bad workers? Does being a bad worker cause someone to smoke? Are both of those the case? Is neither?

PS. A letter published in 1999 in that same journal carries the headline:

The United States navy attracts young women who smoke

Hopes are safer than aspirations, as regards small insects keeping their proper place. Hopes do not by themselves cause an infestation, in the head of a human being, of gnats, midges, anthomid flies, Collembola and wasps parasitic upon the flies. Aspirations can, and sometimes do. This fact dawns on anyone who reads a report called Myiasis Resulting from the Use of the Aspirator Method in the Collection of Insects, published in the journal Science in June 1954.

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

Investigator Lorenzo Stievano writes:

This is the answer we needed to students that find chemistry not enough sexy! I would like you to notice the fine detail of the equilibrium double arrows: in chemistry, all equilibria are supposed to be dynamic.

The image is from the study

“{trans-1,4-Bis[(4-pyridyl)ethenyl]benzene}(2,2′-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) Complexes and Their Supramolecular Assemblies with -Cyclodextrin,” Sergio H. Toma, et al., Inorg. Chem., 43 (11), 3521 -3527, 2004. 10.1021/ic0352250 S0020-1669(03)05225-X.

(To see an enlargement and details, click on the image).