Improbable Research

Gina Trapani, having found herself marinated in studies about productivity and the internet, muses (in Lifehacker) on what it all means:

Every time a new research study around personal productivity and office culture appears, we dutifully post the “proof” that information overload, email distractions, and multitasking are keeping you from getting work done—but are they? Sure, many of these findings seem very feasible, but it’s hard not to think they’re published only as a crutch for a larger commercial or media message—either “the internet is destroying your life!” or “you need to buy this product.” …

Even though we’re very much a cog in this giant machine, I have my doubts.

The longer I do this, the more I suspect that a good part of the “information overload” story is a myth cooked up by folks who don’t know how to use the internet well in order to demonize something they don’t understand. I get more done via email and surfing the web than my parents ever did using phones and libraries, even when I’m having a bad day and switch to my email application the moment I see a new message notification.

Stephen Gisselbrecht has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I am happy to have found a scientific society that will cater to more than one of my interests.

Stephen S. Gisselbrecht, MA, LFHCfS
Senior Technical Research Assistant
Division of Genetics, Department of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts, USA

But my bigger question is why doesn’t Japan dominate the Ig Noble Awards ? those Nobel Prize parodies handed out at Harvard each year by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine. One would guess Japan would rule here the way the Russians have ruled in chess.

Yet Japan has won barely a dozen Ig Nobles since the prizes began 16 years ago, a modest amount but still almost twice the number of Japan’s genuine Nobels. And most of the Ig Nobles are genuine lulus….

So writes Thomas Dillon in the March 29, 2008 issue of Japan Times. He gives several examples.

(Thanks to investigator Mark Schreiber for bringing this to our attention.)

The July/August issue (volume 14, number 4) of the magazine is now out.

It’s the special Colorful Research issue, and it’s online. Mel says “It’s swell.”

Levi-Montalcini built a small research lab in her bedroom (and, when the bombing of Turin became too intense, in the attic of the country cottage to which her family fled), where she conducted experiments on chick embryos. That, my friends, is scientific grace under extreme pressure.

So writes Jennifer Ouellette about Rita Levi-Montalcini, who discovered nerve growth factor, for which years later she shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.