Improbable Research

In the same spirit that (independently) led Richard Wassersug to conduct the (Ig Nobel Prize winning) study “On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica,” Ralph Lewin and Mike Doudoroff performed a simple experiment:

Why, they asked, didn’t birds decimate the festoons of Monarchs that hung on the near-by butterfly trees? Do they taste bad? Are they toxic, possibly lethal? Ralph and Mike had just started their experiment during the afternoon break. Visiting the butterfly trees, they focused on two butterflies, one on top of the other. (long pause). Well, Ralph ate the male. Ralph reported that he tasted rather like hazel nuts and that he, Ralph, felt well. Mike promised that at least one of them would report on longer-term toxicity during the Sunday session, which they both did.

So reports John Ingraham

(That’s an excerpt from the back cover of AIR 13:4.)

Geoffrey Leech invites you to a celebration of impoliteness and rudeness:

Linguistic Impoliteness And Rudeness II (LIAR II)

The 2009 International Conference of The Linguistic Politeness Research Group
Lancaster University, United Kingdom
30 June – 2 July 2009

This three-day conference focuses is on language and communication that might be described as ‘impolite’, ‘rude’, ‘aggressive’, ‘face-attacking’, etc., building on the success of the first politeness conference (LIAR) at the University of Huddersfield. However, we also welcome any papers that are related to politeness theory, application or practice in any form. Researchers and postgraduates working in fields such as linguistics, sociology, psychology, communication studies, business studies, organizational studies, conflict resolution studies, literature and philosophy are particularly welcomed, though the conference is open to all interested parties.

(Thanks to investigator Martin Gardiner for bringing this to our attention.)

Kris Coward has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I’m an (underemployed) mathematician and currently doing research on (sung) music recognition algorithms (though my formal background is in Operator Algebra) for Caliope Music Search Inc. in Toronto..

Kris Coward, PhD, LFHCfS
Research and Development Lead
Caliope Music Search Inc.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

George Eby has a web site which has an American flag, a picture of George Eby, and an insistence that George Eby believes that zinc can cure the common cold. As the web site puts it: “Over the years, George Eby Research has become the world’s leading authority on curing common colds with zinc.”

Some people, though, are cold or indifferent to that notion.

(Thanks to investigator Jan Enkimar for bringing George Eby and his flag to our attention.)

Great dangers threaten anyone who reads a lot, we learn from Samuel Auguste André David Tissot’s book, Diseases Incidental to Literary and Sedentary Persons, with Proper Rules for Preventing Their Fatal Consequences, and Instructions for Their Cure.

Tissot was a much celebrated doctor based in Switzerland, perhaps best known for his treatise L’Onanisme: Dissertation sur les Maladies Produites par la Masturbation, published in 1774 and reportedly of great influence throughout the continent.

But his analysis of ailing literary persons and advice for them remain as potent as when the book appeared in an English translation in 1768. It bursts with descriptions of the medical side-effects of studying.

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