Improbable Research

The June issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: Peanut Butter Research; Classification Classification Problem; Video Poker for the Master; Rhomboid Intramembrane Protease Poets; Ant Crowding Competition; The Secret to Success; Newest Hairy Scientists & Professor-Professors; Waffles and Age; Morals, Doppelgangers, Secrets, Deception, Bulb Interpretation, Steps, Fat.

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Because things are only in perspective when compared to a dump truck.

So says Zoologix, about a chart that compares the lengths of a blue whale, a giant quid, a colossal squid, and a dump truck.

(Thanks to investigator Russell Zenakis for bringing this to our attention.)

Peanut butter is being turned into diamonds by scientists with a technique that harnesses pressures higher than those found at the centre of the earth. Edinburgh University experts say the feat is made possible by squeezing the paste between the tips of two diamonds creating a “stiletto heel effect”. The scientists also revealed they can turn oxygen into red crystals using the same method. Demonstrations take place at Royal Society exhibition shows from 2 July.

So says a June 27, 2007 BBC report, which features a picture of peanuts in their pre-compressed state.

Implications are not fully known — but the effects of peanut butter on the rotation of the earth were documented long ago.

Carl Philips, Brian Guenzel and Paul Bergen are hopping mad about bad metaphors. Writing in the Journal of Harm Reduction, they pull on their imaginary boxing gloves.

Stepping into the ring, so to speak, they declare: “Anti-harm-reduction advocates sometimes resort to pseudo-analogies to ridicule harm reduction. Those opposed to the use of smokeless tobacco as an alternative to smoking sometimes suggest that the substitution would be like jumping from a three-storey building rather than a 10-storey, or like shooting yourself in the foot rather than the head.”

Following their summary of these two disagreeable analogies, Philips, Guenzel and Bergen proceed to administer a good thrashing….

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

Just as George Bush the American president has to contend with George Bush the neuroscientist (and vice versa) and other George Bush scientists, so now does Gordon Brown the new British prime minister have to contend with Gordon Brown the mathematician.

Here are two notable studies by Gordon Brown:

“A Remark on Semi-Simple Lie Algebras”
Gordon Brown
Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Aug., 1964), p. 518.

and

“A Class of Simple Lie Algebras of Characteristic Three”
Gordon Brown
Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 107, No. 4 (Dec., 1989), pp. 901-905.

For some George Bush science studies, see “MAY WE RECOMMEND: The Science of G. Bush“, elsewhere on the Improbable Research web site.

(NOTE TO MOLLIFY MATHEMATICIANS: The phrase “lie algebra” is usually pronounced as if the first word is spelled “lee”)

BEIJING (Reuters) – A group of Chinese reporters came up with a novel idea to test how greedy local hospitals were — pass off tea as urine samples and submit the drink for tests.

The results: six out of 10 hospitals in Hangzhou, the capital of the rich coastal province of Zhejiang, visited by the reporters over a two-day period this month concluded that the patients’ urinal tracts were infected.

Five of the hospitals prescribed medication costing up to 400 yuan ($50), the online edition of the semi-official China News Service (www.chinanews.com) said in a report seen on Wednesday….

Health Minister Gao Qiang has accused greedy hospitals of charging excessive fees and prescribing unnecessary and expensive medication.

So says a March 21, 2007 Reuters report.

(Thanks to investigator Adiyasa Dwitama for bringing this to our attention.)