Improbable Research

Thousands of songs, poems, novels and movies explore the link between obsession, compulsion and romantic love. So, too, does at least one published scientific study. Donatella Marazziti, Alessandra Rossi and Giovanni B Cassano of the University of Pisa, and Hagop S Akiskal, of the University of California San Diego, undertook the first thorough biochemical investigation of this complex and delicate question.

The four doctors wrote that “it is reasonable to hypothesise that [falling in love] must be mediated by a well-established biological process … [We set out to] examine the relationship between the serotonin (5-HT) transporter, the state of being in love and obsessive-compulsive processes”. This chemical – serotonin (5-HT) – is involved in regulating all sorts of human behaviour, including appetite, sleep, arousal and depression. Doctors Marazziti, Rossi, Cassano and Akiskal asked two simple questions…

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

Wolter Seuntjens, the world’s best-known and perhaps most philosophically-dedicated scholar on yawning, has a new book out. It’s called Gaap! The title, like the book, is in Dutch. An interview with the author, on the Dutch television program De Wereld Draait Door, is also in Dutch. Click here to see and hear it (the interview begins about 1/3 of the way in).

Dr. Seuntjens published some of his research in the Annals of Improbable Research. He has also shared some of his yawningly-provocative findings with the public during Improbable Research tours in the UK and in The Netherlands.

(Thanks to 2002 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize winner Chris McManus for bringing this to our attention.)

Edward Burgin has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I?m a PhD student at imperial college with I believe LFH.

Edward Burgin, LFHCfS
Single Cell Proteomics Group
Department of Chemistry
Imperial College
London, UK

(Click on the photo to see more detail.)

These five photographs (below) are the results from an experiment performed November 26 at Imperial College London. 2006 Ig Nobel Mathematics Prize co-winner Piers Barnes was a featured lecturer at the evening’s special Improbable Research event. Dr. Barnes described his Ig-winning research — the calculation of how many photos one must take of a group of people to (almost) ensure having a photo in which no one blinks.

Immediately after the event, Dr. Barnes (in these photos he is the man with both glasses and dreadlocks) and eleven audience members gathered for a series of five photos. We leave it to you to evaluate these results.

If you know nothing else about the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, you should know this: The Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale includes a 13-item shyness scale and a 20-item shyness scale.

The original, unrevised Shyness Scale includes a 9- item shyness scale. It, the original, was devised by J.M. Cheek and A.H. Buss. The revised version appears to be a work of Buss-less Cheek.

(Thanks to investigator David Lester for bringing this to our attention.)

Here are two projects by investigator Adrian Cheok

1. How to make your pet chicken feel loved even when you are 2000 miles away.

2. How to enjoy quality time with your pet hamster in a virtual reality game

(Thanks to investigators Elaine Chew and Alex Francois for bringing this to our attention.)