Improbable Research

A 1950 film, somewhat overlooked by scholars who hunger only for knowledge, explores the concept “Let’s make a sandwich.”

(Thanks to investigator Lang Huang for bringing this to our attention.)

The Tusculum Way

Reclassification: The Tusculum Way, Cleo Treadway, Tusculum College Press, 1974.

Classification Reclassification

“Automatic Defect Classification (ADC) Reclassification Engine,” U.S. patent #5966459, granted October 12,1999 to Ming Chun Chen et al.

(That’s an excerpt from the article “Reclassification Research Review (Research that looks askance at the past),” compiled by Ernest Ersatz, Improbable Research Staff, in AIR 14:1)

It is estimated that 1.5 to 2 million people worldwide keep marine aquariums with 600,000 households in the United States alone. Although the American Association of Poison Control Centers estimates 40,000 to 50,000 marine envenomations occur worldwide each year, the actual number of envenomations that result from home aquarium specimens is unknown.

This paper reviews the presenting symptoms and treatment options for envenomations from the most common and deadly marine specimens aquarists are likely to encounter. How lack of regulatory control over the marine ornamental industry places potentially dangerous marine specimens at the hands of the general public is also explained.

The strikingly patterned lionfish accounts for most envenomations of home aquarists. Although death is rare, many specimens are capable of producing incapacitating pain of the affected limb. Lack of regulatory control over the marine exotic trade and the growing popularity of home aquariums may contribute to increasing envenomations among hobbyists, unsuspecting adults and children.

So says the report “Marine Envenomations Among Home Aquarium Hobbyists,” Edward P. Monico, Arthur Calise and Dean Nottingham, Internet Journal of Emergency and Intensive Care Medicine, vol. 10, no 1, 2007.

(Thanks to investigator Erwin Kompanje for bringing this to our attention.)

Tonight is the annual special Improbable Research show at the AAAS Annual Meeting. The meeting floats from city to city in various years. This year it’s in Boston.

The show is free and open to the public. It begins at 8:00 pm, in the Republic A room of the Sheraton Boston Hotel. (Click here for a map)
The session features: AIR editor Marc Abrahams, Ig Nobel Prize winner Gauri Nanda (inventor of Clocky, the alarm clock that runs away and hides repeatedly); Steve Nadis (”Just How Many Holy Grails of Science Are There?”); Toscanini’s Ice Cream Propriety Gus Rancatore (Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize winner Mayu Yamamoto’s discovery of how to extract vanillin from cow dung—and applications of this for making delicious ice cream); Gus Rancatore (The 89th Anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses Flood); Elaine Chew and Alexandre Francois (A technical analysis of the music of P.D.Q. Bach); David Kessler and Joshua Kroll (”Technical Secrets of the Ig Nobel Ceremony”); and eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo will help ensure that all the talks are delightfully brief.

Please spread the word! (Click on the image to download a printable poster.)

A constellation is a group of stars that form a particular pattern. The celestial sphere is traditionally divided into 88 such constellations. Most are arranged to resemble characters from Ancient Greek mythology, and all have Latin names. Examples include Aries, Cygnus, Pisces and Virgo.

These archaic descriptors and their associated myths are usually lost on today’s youth. Adolescents have difficulty relating to outdated objects such as harps, herdsmen and flying horses, as they are enamored with modern-day conveniences such as cars, computers and coffee shops. It should come as no surprise that fewer and fewer young people show any interest in astronomy.

I have devised a comprehensive restructuring of constellation naming conventions as a means of attracting more students. Along with radical design changes, it also forsakes Latin names in favor of modern English. For example, consider Cassiopeia, which depicts the mythological queen sitting in a chair. I believe that this constellation would be much more palatable to today’s youth if it were reoriented and renamed Handgun, as illustrated in Figure 1.

(That’s an excerpt from the article “Constellation Reformation,” by Ursula Majors, Published in AIR 14:1.)

The February issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: Lovelady and Little Hans on Valentine’s Day; NGF and the Chemistry of Rapid Love; Side-Scan Steep-Slope Sonographs; Gallup On Kisses; Enlightenment by Depressor; Bachelor Physics; etc.

(If you would like to have mini-AIR automatically sent to your email box every month, please subscribe to it. It’s free.)

Donald C Stone was only slightly joking when he wrote an article called The Administration of Chairs: Not the Persons or Subject, But the Arrangement of Chairs Determines the Success of a Meeting.

Sitting quietly in a back issue of the journal Public Administration Review, Stone’s seven-page composition both instructs and advises. His basic message: there are good and bad ways to arrange chairs in a meeting room, and any success-minded administrator had better learn the difference….

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

Why did Professor Julian Gardner synthesize snot? The answer appears in Simon Usborne’s unusual (for newspapers) article, in the January 2, 2007 issue of the Independent, looking at some supposedly (and perhaps genuinely) “bizarre” research, and exploring why the researchers decided to do what they did:

Mucus, it turns out, separates the myriad chemical compounds that make up the smell of, say, frying onions. These compounds travel through the mucus at different speeds, hitting our scent receptors at different times. By dissecting and separating smells in this way, mucus allows our brains to identify scents more quickly and accurately. It was with this in mind that, in April, Professor Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick started to improve his electronic noses, which have been used (without mucus) for years, in everything from the production of artificial fragrances to quality control in crisp factories.

“We built a polymer that replicates the function of snot,” says Gardner. “It’s not green but it has the same consistency as human snot and, applied to our sensors, means our artificial noses are at least five times better than those without snot.”

Small hordes, are attacking the invention that earned its inventor the 2006 Ig Nobel Peace Prize. A February 12, 2008 BBC News report gives details:

Calls to ban anti-teen device

Campaigners are calling for a ban on a device that emits a high-pitched sound to disperse groups of teenagers, saying it is not a fair way to treat them. There are estimated to be 3,500 of the devices, known as the Mosquito, in use in England, many at shopping centres. Their sound causes discomfort to young ears - but their frequency is above the normal hearing range of people over 25…. a new campaign called “Buzz off“, led by the children’s commissioner for England and backed by groups including civil liberties group Liberty, is calling for them to be scrapped.

Howard Stapleton, the Mosquito’s inventor, received much public acclaim during his appearance, last year, on the Ig Nobel Tour of the UK. You can read about that here, and watch video of one of those tour appearances here.

(Thanks to investigator Tammy Boyce for bringing this to our attention.)

UPDATE later in the day: The British government announced it will not ban the device. (So says a news report by icWales.)

This family is more than a botanical curiosity. It is a scientific conundrum, as the taxa:

1. lack genetic material,

2. appear virtually immortal and

3. have the ability to form intergeneric crosses with ease, despite the lack of any evident mechanism for cross-fertilization.

In this study, conducted over approximately six years, we elucidate the first full description and review of this fascinating taxon, heretofore named Simulacraceae. The distribution, ecology, taxonomy, ethnobotany and chemistry of this widespread family are herein presented. We have identified more than 80 species, and determined that this cosmopolitan family has a varied ecology. This report delineates seventeen genera (Calciumcarbonatia, Celadonica, Conglomeratium, Dentumadhesivium, Ductusadhesivia, Granitus, Lignus, Metallicus, Papyroidia, Paraffinius, Photophyta, Plasticus, Polystyrin, Prophylactica, Simulacra, Silicus and Textileria).

(That’s an excerpt from the article “Artificae Plantae: The Taxonomy, Ecology, and Ethnobotany of Simulacraceae“, by Kurt Allerslev Reynertson, Julie Velasquez Runk and Nat Bletter,” published in AIR 14:1.)

How hard is it to write a book about an abstruse subject? Steve Nadis is determined to find out. Here is one of his personal progress reports:

Yesterday I met with a prominent mathematician (a number theorist) to discuss my book, which involves math and string theory and vice versa. Early on in our conversation, when I confessed to not being up on certain math concepts, he said: “I think you’re going to have a hard time writing this book.” We talked some more and before long reached another of those junctures where I did not know what I should have known and he mentioned again, “I think you’re going to have a hard time writing this book.” I shrugged it off, we continued our conversation, and before long I hit another tough spot and he interjected, once again, with the familiar refrain. Well, three times a charm, as they say, and this time I believed him: I AM going to have a hard time writing this book.

Here are the factors involved in calculating odor based setbacks (as calculated by the Purdue Agricultural Air Quality Laboratory — your own calculations may involve a different mix of factors):

F = wind frequency factor [0.75 to 1.00],

L = land use factor [0.5 to 1.00],

T = topography factor [0.8 to 1.00],

V = orientation and shape factor [1.00 to 1.15],

E = building odor emission, N x P x B, OU/s,

N = number of pigs,

P = odor emission factor, OU/s-pig, [1 to 15],

B = building design and management factor, M-D,

M = manure removal frequency [0.50 to 1.00],

D = manure dilution factor [0.00 to 0.20],

S = odor emission from outdoor storage, C x G, OU/s,

C = odor emission factor for outside liquid manure storage, 50 OU/s-AU

G = animal unit, AU=1,100 lb of pig weight.

AE = odor abatement factor for buildings [0.30 to 1.00],

AS = odor abatement factor for outside liquid manure storage [0.30

to1.00]

(Thanks to investigator Hugh Henry for bringing this to our attention).

Dr. O.R.L. Pretzel—perhaps the foremost Pretzel in the ranks of living mathematicians—has retired.

He states that he will maintain links with Imperial College London as a Senior Research Investigator.

Your recent discussion about “Fall Guys in Science” reminded me of a scientist who, to me, is legendary. She is no fall guy. Her laboratory’s web site describes her as “our fearless leader.” Her name is Margaret McFall-Ngai, which I believe is pronounced “Margaret McFall Guy.” If that really is how she pronounces her name, she is now my hero. My hero studies squid, and publishes lots of studies. They call her collected works “The McFall-Ngai Papers,” and you can find lots of them online.

So writes besotted investigator Hans Dielos.

A physics breakthrough of some sort—the details are as yet vague— is reported in a December 15, 2007 IANS /Yahoo report. It says:

Anupam is narrator in 6-D film on India

Anupam Kher is on cloud nine after becoming part of a crucial project encompassing the history of India from the Mohenjodaro to today’s times. Titled ‘India In Motion’, it is a six-dimensional (6-D) film of 25 minutes and the actor is on board as the narrator….

‘The film on India will be the first 6-D product in the series to be screened in specially built theatres. There’s no real parallel to the experience to anything in cinema. We can compare it with those Disney joyrides where we think feel and sense all the experiences while sitting in one place.

To showcase this astonishing piece of audiovisual history, produced by an Israel-based company Orpan, the first 6-D movie theatre in India is being built in collaboration with Adlabs at Agra near the Taj Mahal.

‘And there will be many six-dimensional theatres in India and internationally within the next few years,’ he said.

(Thanks to investigator Arun Giridhar for bringing this to our attention.)