Improbable Research

Here are three ant crowding limericks, runners up in the Ant Crowding Competition Limerick Competition that was announced in mini-AIR 2007-06. The winning limerick — not amongst the trio shown here — will be announced in mini-AIR 2007-07. The competition asked for a limerick to honor the following study:

“Optimal Traffic Organization in Ants Under Crowded Conditions,” A. Dussutour, V. Fourcassi?, D. Helbing and J.-L. Deneubourg, Nature, 2004, vol. 428, pp. 70?3.

The runners-up:

INVESTIGATOR DEBBIE HECHT:
The ants marched along two by two
From the hallway on into the loo
And though they were crowded
I’d like to know how did
They know how to do what they do.

INVESTIGATOR LEILA HDJ-CHIKH:
For ants that must travel to feed,
Their transit authority need
Is easily solved
By hormones evolved
To always avoid a stampede.

INVESTIGATOR MIGUEL PESSANHA PAIS:
When ants look for sugar they may
Find two paths that stand in the way.
They will make a choice,
Then feast and rejoice,
Though they’d have got there, anyway!

I’m far from home at my annual conference. Dr. Bane is here, and worse than ever before. While he didn’t crash the board meetings, he has serially violated the graduate students: he forces them to listen to his grand delusions about his role in the creation of the universe for hours at a time. The more senior members of the society have begun a watch, and when we see a student with him for more than a few minutes, we invent some important errand that the student must go on right away.

Today, near the end of a talk, Dr. Bane walked into the lecture hall and tried to squeeze into a crowded front row. He knocked one of our Academy members off his chair. He stepped on a student’s bag. He knocked over the table behind him, spilling water on everyone there.

Then. His. Pants. Fell. Off.

All the way down to the ankles. Biggest damn pair of tighty-whiteys I’ve ever seen. It took me at least an hour and a half to compose myself. Several people saw me running from the lecture hall in tears, and thought there’d been a death in my family.

You probably think I’m making this up. But I’m not.

So writes the Angry Professor.

I would like to nominate myself (in order to exercise my egolatry) to the IgNobel 2007 edition.

After playing with my new Wii video console for 10 hours I suffered from a tendinitis in my shoulder. I decided to report my personal case to the New England Journal of Medicine. Surprisely they published it! You can find the original article here:

Bonis J. Acute wiiitis. New England Journal of Medicine, 2007 Jun 7;356(23):2431-2.

where I coin a new disease “Wiiitis” and describe the treatment.

I think this is the article with a higher impact-factor / time-to-write of the history of science (toke 30 mins of research, discounting of course the 10 hours of intensive videoplay)

The “discover” got (not surprisely) the mass-media attention, being reported worldwide (including CNN).

Please consider my nomination to IgNobel. Maybe by winning the honorous prize I can bribe the japanese ninja that wears a Nintendo t-shirt and a katana and is waiting me every morning outside the hospital since I published the paper that says Nintendo Wii videogame is bad for health.

So says a note we received from Julio Bonis Sanz, MD.
[NOTE: a PDF of Dr. Bonis's complete NEJM article is on his web site.]

Hello to all of the members of the Fingerprint Society. My name is William Morris, I?m from Leicestershire Constabulary Fingerprint Bureau and I?m taking over from David Charlton as the editor of Fingerprint Whorld.

So writes William Morris about his ascension to the helm of the Fingerprint Society.

Biologists, as a group, are ignorant about Octopus Faith. Here is a capsule description of Octopus Faith:

Octopus Faith? is a faith that is too big for the box. It’s a faith that calls you to the deep things of God, keeps you connected to your Oxygen Line, and assures you can handle the underwater pressure. Whether it’s a two hour special event, one day or weekend retreat, your women will enjoy this Christian, creative, fun, and biblically-based journey to explore the . . . . . . . .

8 Tentacles of Octopus Faith?:

1. Praise: Do You Know Who God Is?
2. Pearls: Do You Know Who You Are?
3. Prayer: An Octopus Conversation
4. Pressure: How to Survive the Underwater Pressure
5. Power: Wrestling with an Enemy
6. Play: The Joy of Octopus Faith?
7. Passion: Longing for Octopus Faith?
8. Pass It On: Lead Someone Else into the Deep

(Thanks to investigator Jessica Girard for bringing this to our attention.)