Improbable Research

Investigator Raluca Musaloiu-E. writes:

Here is a paper published in the 3rd Conference on Email and Anti-Spam CEAS 2006 July 27-28, 2006, Mountain View, California: “Sorry, I Forgot the Attachment: Email Attachment Prediction” by Mark Dredze, John Blitzer and Fernando Pereira from the Computer and Information Sciences Department at University of Pennsylvania.

I cite from their abstract:

“Everyone knows the missing attachment problem; a single missing attachment generates a wave of emails from all the recipients notifying the sender of the error. We present an attachment prediction system to aid email users in attachment management. We present a method by which an intelligent system can inform the user when an outgoing email is missing an attachment. Additionally, the system could activate an attachment recommendation system, whereby suggested attachments are offered once the system determines the user is likely to include an attachment. We present promising initial results and discuss implications of our work.”

Simon Gregory has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I am currently researching the microbial ecology of constructed wetlands.

Simon Gregory, LFHCfS
Lab Technician
Aquaculture Wales Team
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Wales Swansea
Swansea, Wales, UK

(Click on the photo to see more detail.)

Bodo writes that the Hungarian people had such a high moral standard that there was no need to mention the possibility that some “unnatural” crimes existed.

So writes an anonymous bookseller at the firm Helen R. Kahn & Associates, in their Catalog 69, about the book Jurisprudentia Criminalis Secundum Praxim & Constitutiones Hungaricas in Partes Duas Divisa. Cujus Pars Prior, Jus & Processum Criminalem, Publica Delicta & Malefactores, Modumque Contra Eos Procedendi, in Genere; Pars Posterior, Crimina Publica & Privata, Eorumque Poenam & Modum Puniendi, in Specie, Exponit, by Mathia Bodo. The description also says:

This work covers criminal and civil law as it was defined in Hungary during the 18th century, and serves as a guide to prosecutors and lawmakers. Among the common laws listed there are those against torture, witchcraft and vampirism, as well as crimes “against nature.”

More than a century after Ivan Pavlov did his famous dog salivation experiment, comes an analogous experiment with cockroaches:

“Pavlov’s Cockroach: Classical Conditioning of Salivation in an Insect,” Hidehiro Watanabe, Makoto Mizunami, PLoS ONE 2(6): e529. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000529. The authors, at the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, report:

Secretion of saliva to aid swallowing and digestion is an important physiological function found in many vertebrates and invertebrates. Pavlov reported classical conditioning of salivation in dogs a century ago. Conditioning of salivation, however, has been so far reported only in dogs and humans, and its underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive because of the complexity of the mammalian brain. We previously reported that, in cockroaches Periplaneta americana, salivary neurons that control salivation exhibited increased responses to an odor after conditioning trials in which the odor was paired with sucrose solution. However, no direct evidence of conditioning of salivation was obtained. In this study, we investigated the effects of conditioning trials on the level of salivation. Untrained cockroaches exhibited salivary responses to sucrose solution applied to the mouth but not to peppermint or vanilla odor applied to an antenna. After differential conditioning trials in which an odor was paired with sucrose solution and another odor was presented without pairing with sucrose solution, sucrose-associated odor induced an increase in the level of salivation, but the odor presented alone did not. The conditioning effect lasted for one day after conditioning trials. This study demonstrates, for the first time, classical conditioning of salivation in species other than dogs and humans, thereby providing the first evidence of sophisticated neural control of autonomic function in insects.

(Thanks to investigator Katharine Sanderson for bringing it to our attention.)

A group called the Global Deception Research Team recently published a report called A World of Lies. It appears in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.

The team is big. It has 91 members, spread all around the world. Their stated goal: “studying stereotypes about liars”.

They ask someone, “How can you tell when people are lying?”, then follow this up with 10 simple questions about liars. Here are the questions…

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

Our analysis is, at least to our knowledge, the one with the largest data set (in terms of completed lunar cycles) to date for the problem under investigation. Using methods of spectral analysis we found overwhelming evidence for the hypothesis that there is no association of the lunar cycle and the number of births.

So write Oliver Kuss and Anja Kuehn in a study called “Lunar Cycle and the Number of Births: A Spectral Analysis of 4.071.669 Births from South-Western Germany.” The doctors are both at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. Their paper has been submitted for publication. The preliminary version can be read at Dr. Kuss’s web site.

(Thanks to investigator Kai Jung for bringing this to our attention.)

“John duPont is looking for artists to illustrate a new bird book. If you know of any interested parties please send a sample of your work and resume to …. “

This announcement, posted on eBEAC, the electronic Bulletin for European Avian Curators, made me think.

John E duPont? The multimillionaire (heir to the DuPont chemical fortune), the trained ornithologist who discovered and officially named a more than a dozen new (sub)species of birds, collector of stamps, birds and shells, founder of the Delaware Museum of Natural History? Doesn’t he suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and isn’t he in prison after murdering an Olympic wrestler in 1996?
Reportedly, yes. But now, after getting bored of wrestlers, he apparently has regained his interest in birds again. Rumour goes that duPont will reward his bird illustrators generously.

Someone has applied music to the video of Pacific University biologist David Scholnick’s shrimp-on-a-treadmill.

Treadmills should, of course, be used with caution, as injuries have been known to occur.

(Thanks to investigator Reiko Allen for bringing this to our attention.)

Investigator Jennifer Grant alerts us to a potentially new branch of scientific inquiry: what-if research. A May 18, 2007 Associated Press report gives details:

Carson’s official biography says he is “current or past President of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, a member of the Board of Trustees of the United States Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, the Abraham Lincoln Institute, the Lincoln Forum and the Lincoln Group of Illinois.”

Siegfried Hustedt is often overcome with dread when he is forced to use other people’s toilets…. The experimental physicist works for Procter & Gamble’s research center in Schwalbach, Germany, near Frankfurt, where together with his fellow researchers, he is developing the toilet paper of the future.

So says an April 23 report in Der Spiegel.

Dr. Hustedt is perhaps best known for U.S. Patent #D450460, “Surface pattern for a soft, flexible disposable wipe.”

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

I am looking for background information on a seemingly obscure portrait of George Washington standing next to his horse’s rear-end.

So writes a quasi-anonymous person, posting to the Google Answers bulletin board, and supplying further details. The portrait is reproduced here:

(Thanks to investigator William J. Maloney for bringing this to our attention.)

Hyper-prolific people are difficult to keep track of. But it’s fun to peek now and then at their latest wonders.

Professor David Lester is a paragon of prolific-ness. He’s been mentioned here before (See “The net result“, September 7 2004, and “Suicide isn’t penniless“, November 14 2006). Since 1966, Lester has published nearly 2,000 academic studies. Most are brief, just a page or two long. Many are co-authored with colleagues or students, or with his wife, Drexel University economist Bijou Yang.

Here are some nuggets from his several hundred new papers published during 2005 and 2006….

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

While turkeys have wandered the grounds of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for years, they’ve apparently gotten very bold lately.There have been reports of turkeys blocking roads, interrupting meetings and chasing people. For example, when radiation control technician Michael Dupray arrives on his Segway scooter, the birds start chasing him down the street.

So says June 1, 2007 NBC-TV report.

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

Dr Hancock began writing children’s books on quantum physics theories last year after completing her thesis.

She has already completed one children’s story featuring Ellie the Electron and there are many more in the pipeline.

“I had a burst of inspiration, and two hours later my thesis had been transformed into a story for kids,” she says.

So says a press release issued by Monash University. Dr. Hancock is now at the Helsinki University of Technology.

(Thanks to investigator Tricia Moranis for bringing this to our attention.)

Unexpected fish is/are in the news.

As with all discoveries of ‘living fossils’, the catch of the third specimen of Indonesian coelacanth Latimeria menadoensis by local fisherman Yustinus Lahama on May 19th 2007 off Malalayang Beach, North Sulawesi, was covered by numerous press reports.

The website of WWF Indonesia presents some hidden details how this specimen was discovered and salvaged:

“ [Yustinus] didn’t know what he has found, and was about to cut and cook the fish. Fortunately Darwin Papendeng an employee at Faculty of Engineering of Sam Ratulangi University, came and prevented Yustinus from consuming it. Darwin recognized the fish as Coelacanth, and contacted the Provincial Fisheries Agency, Tourism Agency, and mass media in North Sulawesi to inform about the discovery of coelacanth.”

Then Indonesian authorities took charge:

“ … the Governor of North Sulawesi, Drs. Sinyo H. Sarundajang and Minister of Marine Affairs and Fishery, Mr. Freddy Numberi who was in Manado at that moment. First, they put the coelacanth in Bahu Mall, then they moved it to a safer aquarium in City Extra Kalasey Restaurant. Unfortunately the coelacanth could stand only for 17 hours, and died at 1 a.m Sunday. It is now in the process of preservation.… ”

At the moment it is unknown if the City Extra Kalasey Restaurant has left more than just the skeleton to be preserved.

POSSIBLY UNRELATED NOTE: Recent news reports suggest that, when one dines in a restaurant, one can not always be certain what species of fish is being served.