Improbable Research

Until recently, no one knew how much fruit changes hands in a typical library. Or at least, no one was telling. Thankfully, the de facto information embargo is now lifted. Anyone who is willing to shell out ?38 can find out by obtaining a copy of a report called The Survey of Library Cafes….

The crowd-pleasing highlight is a section called “Mean, Median, Minimum and Maximum of Percentage of Total Revenues of the Library Cafe or Restaurant Accounted for by Sales of Fruit, Broken Out by Number of Annual Visitors to the Library“….

So say portions of this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

British Member of Parliament Ronnie Campbell recently conducted some linguistics research, according to a Sunday, January 20, 2008 report in the Sunday Sun:

North MP hot under collar at fetish mistake

A NORTH MP was left red-faced last night after accidentally giving his support to National Fetish Day.

Organisers revealed Ronnie Campbell had promised to wear purple to support a day of awareness tomorrow. But the MP for Blyth Valley, Northumberland, withdrew his backing after the Sunday Sun explained the kinky connotations of the word ?fetish? which he was not aware of.

Mr Campbell revealed he thought ?fetish? was just another word for ?worry? instead of a description of people who get their kicks in unusual ways. Fetishists include people who wear rubber and who indulge in bondage, sadism, and masochism.

When we told him, Mr Campbell said: ?Oh my God almighty, my God, is that what a fetish is? ?I thought a fetish was a worry, like worrying about backing the right horse.?

(Thanks to investigator Clara Spofford for bringing this to our attention.)

The inventor of the bottomless bowl of soup, having assumed a position of power in Washington, DC, is now doing a regular series of podcasts.

2007 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize winner Brian Wansink (he won the prize for his experiments using the bottomless soup bowl) was recently appointed executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Wansink began his new duties with the new year, which he marked by appearing in his first podcast.

Wansink’s book Mindless Eating describes many of his experiments with soup, candy and other gustatory treats. Our reviewer pointed out that, among other good things, it may be the best diet book ever written (even though its publisher never markets it as a diet book).

Today’s seminar of the day:

Tuesday, January 22, 2008, 4:00pm, Dana 114, Northeastern University
CIRCS
“Does Intelligence Help or Hinder in Achieving Consensus”
Professor Sid Redner
Boston University

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