Annals of Improbable Research
MAY | JUNE 2009 (volume 15, number 3)
Special ACCOUNTING Issue
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Financiers’ Fingers,
Financiers’ Genes,
Adventures in Accounting...
Contents
The features marked with a star (*) are based entirely on material taken straight from standard research (and other Official and Therefore Always Correct) literature. Many of the other articles are genuine, too, but we don’t know which ones.
Special Section: Financial Meltdown
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IFC Boys Will Be Boys: Financial Trading*—
6 Blood, Fingers, and Genes of Fabulous Financial Traders*—
11 Great Adventures in Accounting*—
Improbable Research
14 A Crusade Against the Quest for the Holy Grail*—
20 A Golden Mean in Your Mouth*—
24 A Tribute to the Edible Dormouse*—
26 The Public Erection of G.S. Brindley*—
Improbable Research Reviews*
4 Improbable Research Review*—
5 Improbable Medical Review*—
13 Icky Cutesy Research Review*—
18 Boys Will Be Boys*—
25 May We Recommend*—
28 Soft Is Hard*—
News & Notes
2 AIR Vents (letters from our readers)
12 AIR books
19 Teachers’ Guide
22 Puzzling Solutions—
31 HMO-NO News: Dentistry—The Final Solution!
32 CARTOON: “The Galileo of the Lemmings”—
31 Back Issues
IBC Unclassified Ads
On the Front Cover
In 2008 and 2009 the nation of Zimbabwe boasted high inflation rates, and issued bank notes in denominations seldom seen in any nation’s paper currency. This is the front of a twenty-billion ($20,000,000,000 — or, in scientific notation 2 x 1010 dollars) Zimbabwe bank note.
On the Back Cover
The back of the twenty-billion Zimbabwe dollar note pictured on the front cover.
Coming Events
May 2 Cambridge (MA) Science Festival
May 4 and 6 Pittsburgh, PA
October 1 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
October 3 Ig Informal Lectures
Late October Genoa Science Festival
(see WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM for details of these and other events)
Every Day
Read something new and improbable every weekday on the Improbable Research blog, on our web site: www.improbable.com
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Boys Will Be Boys:
Financial Trading
Manly and womanly behavior diverge when people play the stock market, hints this report:
“Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment,” Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 116, no. 1, February 2001, pp. 261-92. The authors, at the University of California, Davis, report:
Theoretical models predict that overconfident investors trade excessively. We test this prediction by partitioning investors on gender. Psychological research demonstrates that, in areas such as finance, men are more overconfident than women. Thus, theory predicts that men will trade more excessively than women. Using account data for over 35,000 households from a large discount brokerage, we analyze the common stock investments of men and women from February 1991 through January 1997. We document that men trade 45 percent more than women. Trading reduces men’s net returns by 2.65 percentage points a year as opposed to 1.72 percentage points for women.
“It’s not what a man don’t know that makes him a fool, but what he does know that ain’t so.”—Josh Billings, nineteenth century American humorist.
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AIR Vents
Exhalations from our readers
NOTE: The opinions expressed here represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of those who hold other opinions.
Lemonade Trials
I must disagree with Julia Robins (AIR Vents 15:1) about Dr. Deborah Anderson and the other doctors who did the Coca-Cola experiments that won the Ig Nobel prize. Robins said that Dr. Anderson said that “one of many reasons people should not use Coca-Cola as a contraceptive is that that ‘misplaced bottle caps can cause serious medical problems.’” It is for just that reason that my friends and I began using orange juice. I do not yet know whether orange juice is more effective than Coca-Cola. I certainly hope so. We are keeping careful statistics, and I must say also enjoying ourselves. We intend to publish our results, once we have them, provided that the orange juice is effective and so our time does not become constrained by the need to oversee lots of unplanned small children.
Britta Jørgensen
Odense, Denmark
The Chatty Hernia Patient
I have information about Dr. Kurt Salloway’s request (AIR Vents 15:2) to know more about the photograph that he says shows his uncle “filming the guts (as it were) of an historic hernia operation.” My Great Aunt Maxima, who was Dutch in her early years before converting to Canadianism, had a hernia operation at around that same time in Ontario. Afterwards Great Aunt Maxima loved to talk about it, and all of us in my father’s generation and in my generation (at least those of us on the older end of my generation) grew up hearing her descend into nauseating, endless detail. She claimed that she insisted on staying awake during the surgery and that she had a running, not always friendly, discussion with the surgeons about certain of their hand gestures and facial mannerisms. I find the “facial mannerisms” part of her stories a little hard to swallow, because I am sure that the surgeons wore face masks even though (obviously, as you see in the photo) the idiots filming them did not. I am fairly sure that Great Aunt Maxima was the patient in this operation, even though in the photograph you cannot see the patient. Her stories always included derisory lamentations about the “morons with the movie cameras” who literally looked down on her as she was being operated on, and whom she mentally and morally looked down on.
Dr. Verena Barrett
Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada
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Dental Lobby Identity Query
I have a new dentist who either delights me or disturbs me—I am trying to decide which, and I hope you can help me make that decision. In her waiting room, she has an enormous display, on three walls, with many kinds of toothbrushes. The display also includes a row of some things that I am sure are not toothbrushes. I took this photo, surreptitiously, on my mobile phone. What the hell kind of skulls are these? I did not dare ask the dentist or her receptionist, and the other patients waiting in the room were so weird themselves that I could not even bring myself to look them in the eyes or eye (one gentleman had what I hope is a very active—may I say “roving”?—glass eye in place of what I assume was originally not a glass eye), let alone talk to them.
Virginia Jacquard, Ph.D.
Seychelles
Parking Lot Little Query
While trying to visit a colleague’s colleague’s colleague (that’s a long story, not worth telling here) at Harvard University I got completely flummoxed by a sign in the parking lot. Here’s a photo. It says “PARKING FOR PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH SUBJECTS ONLY.” Is this sign itself part of an experiment—to see how people react to what it says? Is everyone who sees the sign and reacts to it, or doesn’t react to it, a research subject? I asked the colleague’s colleague’s colleague about it. He said he could not discuss that subject, and immediately changed the subject.
Prof. Dr. Vincent E.B. Wu, Ep.F.
Associate Director
Malden-Rahoss Klinik
Kukmirn, Austria
Mouthblown in China: Another Tasmanian Perspective
Please stop printing that vile photograph of “Mouthblown in China.” It has sullied your letters column for too long. We liked the magazine better when you printed more photographs of the little man Mel, who always struck us as being a wholesome sort of person.
Doreen and Albert Thomason
Smithton, Tasmania, Australia
Maybe Mel, Pointedly
Oh, no. The famous Mel misidentification problem again more than tempted fate, and fate again did not resist. Thank you for publishing my now-sadly-lengthy series of letters (most recently in AIR Vents 15:2) and reproducing our new photographic treasure. The arrow stamped on the original image and now, I find, the corrective arrow that I applied and also the further corrective arrow that I applied to that, all of which I implied might be pointing to Mel, in fact do not. I have circled what I now almost confidently believe to be the most probable location of Mel in the photograph. I vow even more determinedly to take more care hereafter.
Lheal Chormnast
TRPNOF Archives
Moldavia
Fruit Fly and Domestic Technology
However important to boring genome studies, drosophilas are a pain in the ass. They have the same taste for schnapps as ours, peaceful boozing becomes an oxymoron. Unlike us, they also love rotten bananas. My domestic drosophilas have somehow developed a mutation: they decided to nest in my bathroom basin. The simple and clean act of washing hands, brushing teeth, is necessarily preceded by the exuberant flight of dozens of drosophilas.
Catching a distracted drosophila is a martial art. When, out of sheer luck, I manage to crush one bastard against the wall, I observe that the others vanish temporarily. Brilliant conclusion: drosophilas abhor the aroma of dead kin. In summary, a drosophila pâté would be an important, ecologically correct repellent.
I have inspected an internet report about drosophila-capturing skills. It involves letting a banana rot, which attracts the sons of bitches, then introducing the banana into a clean bottle, whereby drosophilas duly follow. Once trapped by a cork, one puts the bottle in the fridge. After an unspecified while, one retrieves the dead drosophilas from the aforementioned bottle and makes the proposed pâté, which should be applied in very small quantities near the unfortunate bathroom basin. Adieu, drosophilas!
Eugenio Vilar, O.C.S.O.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Improbable Research Review
Improbable theories, experiments, and conclusions
compiled by Dirk Manley, Improbable Research staff
Environmental Smackdown: Sanitary Pads vs. Tampons
“Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Sanitary Pads and Tampons,” Marta Mazgaj, Katsiaryna Yaramenka, and Oleksandra Malovana, Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Life Cycle Assessment course, May 22, 2006. (Thanks to Alexander Estrin for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, explain:
We faced different problems during our investigations. First, and the most important, was the lack of quantitative data.... if we are supposed to give an environmentally-based advice to women who are going to make their choice—sanitary pads or tampons—conducted analysis is a good prompt but should not be considered as the only background. From assemblies comparison tampons is definitely better than pads, but comprehensive life cycle assessment can show results that will differ. There is a large room left for assumptions on the inputs of cotton transportation and energy consumption during tampons production stage.
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Why Some People Prefer Pickle Juice
“Why Some People Prefer Pickle Juice: The Research of Dr. Richard P. Lifton,” Peter M. Gayed, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 80, no. 4, December 2007, pp. 159–63. The author, at Yale University School of Medicine, begins:
Dr. Richard Lifton has seen patients who crave nothing more than pickle juice.
Statistical Analysis: Chemistry and Canadians’ Beer Preferences
“A Regression-Model with Random Effects for Beer Chemistry and Canadians’ Beer Preferences,” Bing Li and A. John Petkau, Canadian Journal Of Statistics, vol. 18, no. 2, 1990, pp. 108–21. (Thanks to M. Budiman for bringing this to our attention.) The authors explain:
This report describes one approach to the problem of building a predictive relationship between a mean preference rating for a beer and its measurements on 35 chemical variables.
We welcome your suggestions for this and other columns. Please enclose the full citation (no abbreviations!) and, if possible, a copy of the paper.
Improbable Medical Review
Improbable diagnoses, techniques, and research
compiled by Bertha Vanatian, Improbable Research staff
The Curious Case of the Boyfriend and the Replacement Cat
“A Zoocentric Capgras Syndrome” [article in German], U. Ehrt, Psychiatrische Praxis, vol. 26, no. 1, January 1999, pp. 43–4. The authors, who are at Klinik und Poliklinik fur Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Halle/Saale, Germany, report that:
We present a case of a 23-year-old women who had the delusional belief that her cat had been replaced by the cat of her former boyfriend. Reviewing the literature we found that such a case is very rare.
Uroscopy in Byzantium
“Uroscopy in Byzantium,” A.A. Diamandopoulos, American Journal of Nephrology, vol. 17, nos. 3–4, 1997, pp. 222–7.
Unwanted Side Effect of Bad Breath
“Endocarditis after Use of Tongue Scraper,” A.M. Redmond, C. Meiklejohn, T.J. Kidd, R. Horvath, and C. Coulter, Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 13, no. 9, September 1, 2007, pp. 1440–1. (Thanks to Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the Prince Charles Hospital, Chermside, Queensland, Australia and at Pathology Queensland, Herston, Queensland, Australia, report:
Tongue scraping is advocated as a therapy for managing halitosis and as a technique for preventing dental caries by reducing bacterial counts in the mouth.... We report the case of a woman in whom infective endocarditis followed the use of a tongue scraper.
Chew, Chew, Chew, and Emaciate
“Severe Weight Loss Caused by Chewing Gum,” Juergen Bauditz, Kristina Norman, Henrik Biering, Herbert Lochs, and Matthias Pirlich, British Medical Journal, vol. 336, no. 96–7, 2008, DOI:10.1136/bmj.39280.657350.BE. (Thanks to Erwin Kompanje for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Charite Universitatsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, report:
Both our patients consumed large amounts of sorbitol, which belongs to the family of polyalcohol sugars, like mannitol and xylitol, some of which are regularly used as laxatives. However, sorbitol is also used as a sweetener in many sugar-free foods and drug products.... Sugar-free or low sugar foods are increasingly eaten in Western countries by people without diabetes because they are low in calories and are less likely than sugar to cause caries. As possible side effects are usually found only within the small print on foods containing sorbitol, consumers may be unaware of its laxative effects and fail to recognise a link with their gastrointestinal problems.
Blood, Fingers, and Genes of Fabulous Financial Traders
Researchers are delving into the blood, fingers, and genes of financial traders. Here are some of the studies that may give us insights into the success or failure of the traders, and of the researchers who study the financiers’ digits and chemical composition.
Here, too, are a few earlier studies that probe the mysteries of high and low finance.
Coates and the Blood of Fabulous Financial Traders (2008)
John M. Coates is a leader of the modern scientific attack force.
“Endogenous Steroids and Financial Risk Taking on a London Trading Floor,” John M. Coates, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, vol. 105, no. 16, April 22, 2008, pp. 6167–72. (Thanks to Catharine Dobbs for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at Cambridge University, reports:
Here, we report the findings of a study in which we sampled, under real working conditions, endogenous steroids from a group of male traders in the City of London. We found that a trader’s morning testosterone level predicts his day’s profitability. We also found that a trader’s cortisol rises with both the variance of his trading results and the volatility of the market. Our results suggest that higher testosterone may contribute to economic return, whereas cortisol is increased by risk.
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| This April 12, 1908 report in The New York Times describes a different, earlier John M. Coates, who “is supposed to be an eccentric globe trotter, with plenty of money to indulge his tastes” and who “was today committed to the Newburg Insane Asylum by Judge Harden of the Probate Court.” |
Coates and the Fingers of Fabulous Financial Traders (2009)
“Second-to-Fourth Digit Ratio Predicts Success Among High-Frequency Financial Traders,” John M. Coates, Mark Gurnell, and Aldo Rustichini, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, no. 2, Jan. 13, 2009, pp. 623–8, DOI:10.1073/pnas.0810907106. (Thanks to Hugh Henry for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Cambridge University, explain:
Here, we report the findings of a study conducted in the City of London in which we sampled 2D:4D [second-to-fourth digit length ratio] from a group of male traders engaged in what is variously called “noise” or “high-frequency” trading. We found that 2D:4D predicted the trader’s long-term profitability as well as the number of years they remained in the business.
Millet on Coates (2009)
Professor Coates’s publications spurred at least one colleague to hazard a daring new interpretation of Coate’s daring interpretation.
“Low Second-to-Fourth-Digit Ratio Might Predict Success Among High-Frequency Financial Traders Because of a Higher Need for Achievement,” Kobe Millet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, no. 11, Mar 9, 2009, p. E30. Millet, who is at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, writes:
The article by Coates et al. adds interesting evidence that a low 2D:4D ratio in men predicts success, not only in sports or music, but also in job performance.... However, they overlook another frugal explanation for their findings.... I expect low-2D:4D people to outperform high-2D:4D people in all kind of competitive jobs, sports, and other activities, not because of specific physical characteristics, but because of one specific psychological characteristic: a higher need for achievement.
Coates on Millet on Coates (2009)
Millet’s hazarded interpretation did not daunt Professor Coates.
“Reply to Millet: Digit Ratios and High Frequency Trading,” John M. Coates, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009, vol. 106:E31; published online before print March 9, 2009. DOI:10.1073/pnas.0900882106. Professor Coates writes:
Kobe Millet, in a letter (1) commenting on the correlations we found between digit ratios and success in high-frequency trading (2), suggests that digit ratios gauge the psychological need to excel rather than a physiological characteristic. However, if this were true, then we would find low 2D:4D among successful people of most occupations, but I do not believe we do....
We should, however, point out that our study could not fully test for the mechanism underlying the correlations between trading success and digit ratio. Only laboratory work can establish this mechanism. Our study rather was a piece of field work, a type of study we feel is sadly lacking in the new subject of neuroscience and economics.
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The Genes of Fabulous Financial Traders (2009)
Other researchers, too, are delving into the biomedical complexities of the individuals who make and lose fortunes by trading financial instruments.
“Genetic Determinants of Financial Risk Taking,” Camelia M. Kuhnen and Joan Y. Chiao, PLoS ONE, vol. 4, no. 2, 2009, e4362. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0004362. (Thanks to Ferran Mir for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, explain:
Individuals vary in their willingness to take financial risks. Here we show that variants of two genes that regulate dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission and have been previously linked to emotional behavior, anxiety and addiction (5-HTTLPR and DRD4) are significant determinants of risk taking in investment decisions. We find that the 5-HTTLPR s/s allele carriers take 28% less risk than those carrying the s/l or l/l alleles of the gene. DRD4 7-repeat allele carriers take 25% more risk than individuals without the 7-repeat allele. These findings contribute to the emerging literature on the genetic determinants of economic behavior.
Swindlers: A Non-Biomedical Approach (2005)
Some researchers, though, take a non-biomedical line of approach to understanding what’s behind or beneath the notable success of high-stakes financial traders.
“Dealing with Swindlers and Devils: Literature and Business Ethics,” Christopher Michaelson, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 58, no. 4, June, 2005, pp. 359–73, DOI:10.1007/s10551-004-5264-5. The author, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, explains:
It has become quite common to use stories in order to make moral sense of business life. Case method is the standard teaching method in top business schools, and so-called “war stories” are customary for on-the-job training.... Still, it is one thing to claim that literature can contribute to our understanding of business conduct, but yet another to claim that literature can contribute to the related goal of improving moral conduct in business.... These claims warrant further investigation if they are to be perceived by business scholarship and practice as worthy of serious attention, not just a quaint search for lowbrow moral fables or a vain pursuit of highbrow poetry.
Accountants: A Non-Biomedical Approach (1999)
“The Poverty of Accounting Discourse,” R.J. Chambers, Abacus, vol. 35 no. 3, October 1999, pp. 241-51. The author, a professor emeritus at the University of Sydney, Australia, reports:
Some forty years ago, accounting was scarcely noticed as a subject of university study. In the last decade it has soared in popularity as an undergraduate option. Professional firms which once disdained accounting graduates now clamour for the cream of the crop. It may seem that accounting has won its spurs as a domain of demanding inquiry and discourse. But things are seldom what they seem. For, while city buildings are emblazoned with the names of big accounting firms, and those firms lend their names to university scholarships and chairs in accounting, almost every large firm has faced legal writs in damages, in thousands to millions of dollars, through demonstrated or admitted professional inadequacy. There’s something odd about this.
For more on Professor Chambers’s investigations of this particularly exciting topic, see “Great Adventures in Accounting” elsewhere in this issue.
Garbage and Fraudulent Financial Reporting
“Garbage In/Garbage Out: A Critique of Fraudulent Financial Reporting: 1987–1997 (the COSO Report) and the SEC Accounting Regulatory Process,” Abraham J. Briloff, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, vol. 12, no. 2, April 2001, pp. 125–48. The author, at the City University of New York, reports:
According to traditional wisdom, the efficiency of a sanitation department should not be measured by the amount of garbage it picks up, but instead by what is left behind. This axiom came to mind regularly as I reviewed and reflected on “Fraudulent Financial Reporting: 1987–1997 An Analysis of US Public Companies,” a report commissioned by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO)....
Most certainly had the authors of the study sensitized their olfactory organs they would have realized that the garbage, which they thus picked up for their arithmetic recycling, was not representative of the really stinking stuff which is contaminating the accounting and financial reporting environment.
Swindlers: An Early Non-Biomedical Approach (1926)
The non-biomedical approach is not new. As far back as 1926, bold researchers used simple approaches that may seem, in comparison to modern blood-composition, finger-length, or genetics analysis, primitive and not fully worth taking into account.
“The Fight on Stock Swindlers,” H.J. Kenner, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 125, no. 1, 1926, pp. 54–8, DOI: 10.1177/000271622612500108. The author, who was (and perhaps still is) general manager of the Better Business Bureau of New York City, explains:
Business men are now taking a hand in checking the “rising tide of crime” and the “growing disrespect for law.” While one national group is studying the problem of curbing crimes of violence, others locally and nationally are continuing action against the white collar bandit, the gentleman thief who steals the savings of the uninformed or the gullible by stock-swindling and fraudulent brokerage practices. Such gentry have an appearance and a savoir faire which are the envy of night prowlers who use nitro-glycerine or a blackjack to get results. But they lack the physical courage of their heavy-handed brother crook; they are a much more despicable lot.
The False Twinkling of Superstar CEOs
Inevitably, some researchers fixate on celebrities, neither using nor even acknowledging the power of modern blood-composition, finger-length, and genetics analysis tools.
“Superstar CEOs,” Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate, SSRN paper #972725, March 15, 2007. The authors, at University of California Berkeley and at University of California Los Angeles, respectively, explain:
We analyze the impact of winning high-profile tournaments on the subsequent behavior of the tournament winner in the context of chief executive officers of U.S. corporations. We find that the firms of CEOs who achieve “superstar” status via prestigious nationwide awards from the business press subsequently underperform beyond mere mean reversion, both relative to the overall market and relative to a sample of “hypothetical award winners” with matching firm and CEO characteristics. At the same time, award-winning CEOs extract significantly more compensation from their company following the award, both in absolute amounts and relative to other top executives in their firm.
Great Adventures in Accounting
The supposedly staid, unglamorous field of accounting is in fact packed, to some degree, with exciting adventures. Accountants rarely divulge this fact to persons outside the profession, but three monographs, all produced in Australia, document some of the adventure and even some of the excitement.
Great Adventures in Accounting (1967)
In 1967, a paper by Professor R.J. Chambers of the University of Sydney essayed to describe the essentially adventurous nature of the accounting field.
“Prospective Adventures in Accounting Ideas,” R.J. Chambers, Accounting Review, vol. 42, no. 2, April 1967, pp. 241–53. Looking both backwards and forwards, Professor Chambers enthuses ruefully:
These fifty years have seen quite a few potentially fruitful ideas, with wide implications, brought to notice, noticed scarcely at all and almost abandoned.... Some 43 years ago, Hatfield said “Let us boldly raise the question whether accounting, the late claimant for recognition as a profession, is not entitled to some respect, or must it consort with crystal-gazing... and palmreading?” I wonder what Hatfield would think today, to see how far some would have us go in the direction of crystal-gazing. I leave you to think about what I am referring to.
Great Adventures in Accounting (1999)
Decades of accounting adventure later, Lee D. Parker of the University of Adelaide published a 31-page study presented in a tone that, in the context of its field, is almost giddy.
“Historiography for the New Millennium: Adventures in Accounting and Management,” Lee D. Parker, Accounting History, vol. 4, no. 2, November 1, 1999, pp. 11–42. (Thanks to Catherine L. Bartlett for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at the University of Adelaide, writes:
We stand on the threshold of the new millennium, facing, on one hand, an academy avowedly presentist and futurist in its research orientation, but, on the other hand, signs of a society rediscovering its past with upsurges of interest in heritage building and artefacts preservation, cinema audiences attracted to the plots of Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen and a host of historical periods and events, historical tourism, thriving antique furniture markets and so on.... While we owe the twentieth century founders of accounting and management history a considerable debt, there remains much for us to learn and even more to discover. Let us begin.
Great Circus Adventures in Accounting (2009)
The turn of the century brought a new openness to, and maybe even nostalgia and yearning for, accounting adventure, symbolized by the publication of a jaunty paper.
“Juggling the Books: The Use of Accounting Information in Circus in Australia,” Lorne Cummings and Mark Valentine St. Leon, Accounting History, vol. 14, nos. 1–2, 2009, pp. 11–33. DOI: 10.1177/1032373208098550. (Thanks to Martin Gardiner for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, respectively at Macquarie University, report:
This article outlines the role of accounting information in circus in Australia in the approximate period 1847–1963. Responding to the call for an increased historical narrative in accounting, we have studied the literature, documentation and personal memoirs concerning circus in Australia.... We have established that, despite elementary levels of education, many circus people exhibited an intuitive grasp of fundamental accounting principles, albeit in a rudimentary form. Nevertheless, since financial and management reporting practises were typically unsystematic, and even non-existent, in all but the largest circus enterprises, Australian circus management may not have been optimized.
Brief: Adventures in Accounting (1990)
“Accounting Error as a Factor in Business History,” Richard P. Brief, Accounting, Business and Financial History, vol. 1, no. 1, 1990, pp. 7–21. The author, at New York University in the United States, reports:
Accounting is often seen as a technical craft and it is common to assume that the technology produces objective, verifiable information that is free from bias. Similarly, accountants are regarded as disinterested, independent scorekeepers. Yet, economists like Morgenstern have also claimed that ‘business is transacted in the illusion of dealing with “accuracy” where there is none in an ordinary or scientific sense.’... [This] makes the case against viewing accounting as neutral and mechanistic quite compelling.
Icky Cutesy Research Review
Research reports that are icky and/or cutesy
compiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research staff
Cutesy: Yesterday’s hair
“Yesterday’s Hair: Human Hair in Archaeology,” Andrew S.Wilson, Ronald A. Dixon, Hilary I Dodson, Robert C. Janaway, A. Mark Pollard, Ben Stern and Desmond J. Tobin, Biologist, vol. 48, no. 5, October 2001, pp. 213–7.
Cutesy: Low-Level Superheroics
“Superhero-related Injuries in Paediatrics: A Case Series,” Patrick Davies, Julia Surridge, Laura Hole and Lisa Munro-Davies, Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol. 92, no. 3, March 2007, pp. 242–3. (Thanks to Terry Rout and Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at hospitals in Nottingham, Bristol and Derby, UK, report that:
Five cases of serious injuries to children wearing superhero costumes, involving extreme risk-taking behaviour, are presented here…. Three of them tried to imitate Spiderman and one Superman. Three were injured after initiating flight without having planned for landing strategies.
Icky: Heads Up (Nail)
“I Have a Nail ‘Stuck’ in my Hand,” E.K. Anesti, C. Malic and S. Southern, Annals of Emergency Medicine, vol. 49, no. 2, February 2007, pp. 249–50 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.08.038).
Icky and Cutesy: Renal Failure
“Acute Renal Failure is Not A ‘Cute’ Renal Failure!” Wilfred Druml, Intensive Care Medicine, vol. 30, no. 10, October 2004, pp. 1886–90.
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A Crusade Against the Quest for the Holy Grail
EDITOR’S NOTE: The unusual format and to some degree the content of this article, including personal and even interpersonal commentary, reflects the persistent, entangled nature of the subject.
Notes Of A Humble Grail Watcher Regarding New Hope On The Horizon, by Steve Nadis (“SN”)
For the past 15 years, I’ve been tilting at windmills bearing the name “Holy Grail”—words that are all too familiar in the scientific literature and other realms of hyperbolic prose. I have made it my life’s work to scour scientific periodicals for references to said term in order to show the extent to which it has been misused, overused, and abused, with the ultimate hope being that scientists and science journalists alike will show more restraint in the future when describing “revolutionary new breakthroughs” or lofty, elusive goals not yet attained.
This is not a field for those eager to get rich quick. There’s not much money to be had in the grail-hunting enterprise, nor much glory to be found either—except in extremely rarified circles among those in the know. Indeed, most civilians fail to recognize the value of my preoccupation, nor do they consider it a valid occupation or even an avocation.
For most of this time, it has been a solitary pursuit laced with private curses, ad hominem remarks (at my own expense), and self-congratulatory chuckles. I even dislocated my shoulder once patting myself on the back. Putting it in literary terms, I have been Don Quixote without Sancho Panza. In dance terms, I have been Fred Astaire without Ginger Rogers. And in terms of refreshing alcoholic beverages that are perfect for the casual get-together or formal office party, I have been Martini without Rossi. (Or Rowan without Martin, or Martin without Lewis, or Lewis without Clark).
But slowly things have been changing for the better, perhaps a result of frequent announcements regarding the grail in this very journal, the Annals itself.1 They say it takes a village, and although a village is not taking shape here, a community is. In the past couple of years, it seems that some people are finally “getting it”—people like Charles Petit, who wrote in the Knight Science Journalism Tracker in 2007: “What is it with any and all holy grails as ever-potent catnip for metaphor-hungry science and medical writers? How is it that French poetry, British Arthurian literature, and the romance of knights off on quests—one that not even Monty Python’s satire could cure—took such deep root in the imaginations of some writers in their youths (and of their sources)?”
Petit’s tirade was spurred by a BBC news story that described the development of artificial blood vessels as “one of the holy grails of regenerative medicine.” Is it, Petit asked, “just one of several such grails? And this in just one subspecialty? Well, one takes one’s holy grails where one finds them. Somebody should do a survey. There must be scads of them. How many holy grails does it take to make them, you know, plain old grails?”2
In 2008, Guardian columnist Tim Radford wrote: “British journalists have invoked the holy grail more than 1,000 times in the last 12 months. I have, almost certainly, evoked the same divinely-touched chalice, rightly celebrated in Arthurian legend, in some inappropriate context. We are all guilty... Grail imagery occurs with astonishing frequency in the scholarly press. Somewhere in the medical literature, I suspect, lurks a paper about the holy grail of hip replacement.”3 (And, yes, Mr. Radford, you are correct. But there is not one paper about the holy grail of hip replacement, my cher comrade in arms. There are many.)
Which brings us to 2009 and Bethany Halford’s rousing call to arms, “A Crusade Against Holy Grails,”4 which I consider to be the Common Sense of the grail-bashing genre and a signal that the world is finally waking up to this long-overlooked issue, the proverbial elephant in the room. Halford’s piece will be summarized shortly, but before getting to that I’d like to say how gratifying it is for me to find someone else taking up what I call “the crusade against the crusade” or, alternatively, “the quest against the quest.”
Halford’s research has focused on the chemical literature, particularly the publications of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Her essay appears in Chemical and Engineering News, the glossy ACS magazine for which she works—a publication, I might add, that has taken the extraordinary measure of banishing the term “holy grail” from its pages since 2003, when the editor-in-chief at that time put her foot down and said (in so many words): “Enough.”5
That was a courageous step and one that should be emulated by other journals. In other fields. In other places of the world. But before I dislocate my other shoulder again by attempting to pat myself on the back too forcefully, I should point out that there’s still a long way to go.
Idly grabbing papers on my desk, I come across phrases such as the following:
• “the Holy Grail of lasers” and “the ‘Holy Grail’ of energy weapons”6
• “the holy grail for a rocket enthusiast without much money”7
• “the Holy Grail of fisheries management”8
• “a Holy Grail of hot dogs in Boston”9
• “The holy grail is that it would be like getting a root canal…you can go to work the next day.”10
I must say, reading lines like these, tossed out so cavalierly, makes me feel like I’ve just had a root canal. It hurts me. And if it hurts you too, I feel your pain. I honestly believe that our society needs some respite, and healing, from the constant barrage of grail attacks. Fortunately, inspirational treatises like Halford’s just may show the way.
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A Crusade Against Holy Grails (abridged version), by Bethany Halford (“BH”)
Lab coat, goggles, gloves—this is the equipment I expect a chemist to wear while embarking on a scientific quest. But I’m beginning to wonder whether more of us ought to be sporting swords, shields, and chain mail, what with the alarming proliferation of “holy grails” in the chemistry literature.
To see what set me off on this track, one need look no further than a stack of 2008 ACS journals, where the casual reader will be besieged by phrases such as: “the holy grail of photoelectrochemistry,” “the holy grail in small molecule-RNA binding,” and “the holy grail of room temperature Ullmann condensation reactions.”
It started innocently enough, in a 1968 edition of the ACS journal, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry, when Associate Editor D. H. Michael Bowen penned an editorial that described the excitement he felt upon following the adventures of a professor in his “pursuit of research’s Holy Grail.” To Bowen’s mind, this pursuit was even more exciting than memorizing dull facts—if you can believe that—though he had no idea of the literary tsunami he was about to unleash. (Note: Might “tsunami” become the next “holy grail”?)
Ten years later, Stephen J. Lippard, then at Columbia University but currently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, put the first holy grail into a research article in an ACS journal when he wrote a paper on how platinum antitumor complexes interact with polynucleotides and kill cancer cells. “As with the Holy Grail of medieval legend, the joy thus far has been in the searching,” Lippard wrote.11
Since then, holy grails in chemical research have been steadily on the rise. Including Lippard’s, three holy grails appeared in ACS journals in the 1970s, and five could be found in the 1980s. During the 1990s, 39 research articles in ACS journals made mention of a holy grail, and since 2000, 169 research articles invoked the sacred goblet. A SciFinder search shows this trend of chemists gravitating toward grails holds true for non-ACS journals as well.
Now, I was always under the impression that there was only one Holy Grail—the legendary vessel used by Jesus at the Last Supper that was later sought by Arthurian knights. But the multiplicity of holy grails in the chemistry literature suggests that they are about as common as plastic beer cups at Sci-Mix. And am I the only one to think it’s strange to equate a scientific endeavor with an object of religious mysticism?
Officially, the phrase is banned here at C&EN (although holy grails have a funny way of insinuating themselves into science writers’ copy regardless of such bans). Were I to tell my colleagues that we should be writing about a research finding because it is a holy grail of something or other, the response would likely be something impolite that I cannot print or, if put more charitably, something like this: “A holy grail? Why? Did someone find another one?”
In the course of my grail hunting for this story, I contacted several prominent chemists who’d referred to a “holy grail” in a publication at some point in their careers. I asked whether they now felt guilty about it and thought, as I do, that the phrase is a bit, shall we say, overworked. Knowing what they know now, would they have done the same thing all over again?
The most interesting response came from Harvard University’s George M. Whitesides, who was coeditor of a special “Holy Grails in Chemistry” issue of Accounts of Chemical Research12. “If one is into semantics or semiotics, there is no excuse for using ‘holy grail’ in chemistry,” Whitesides says. “There are fields that have single, unified objectives, which, if reached, would revolutionize the field. I don’t think that there is a single thing that would turn all of chemistry on its ear, since one of chemistry’s strengths is its diversity.”
But I must begrudgingly admit that Whitesides also made a good case for not discarding holy grails entirely. “’Holy grail’ has come to mean ‘solution to a really big problem.’ The idea that one size fits all is, I think, unfair to the range of opportunities in chemistry, but it is at least clear what the phrase means,” he points out. “If two words give a sense of expansiveness and ambition and centrality, why not use them? ‘Holy grail’ means something to every chemist and to most others. It may mean something different to every chemist, but there are worse confusions. Better multiple grails than none.”
Commentary (by SN): Perhaps it comes as no surprise that I like all aspects of the article (with the possible exception of the last sentence, which I don’t quite understand13). I especially like the part (not contained in the abridged version) that refers to yours truly as “the chief grail hunter in all of science.”
Rejoinder (by BH): I had no idea grail bashing could be so fun. I can’t wait to tell the gals in my knitting circle, who are always looking for a new hobby.
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1 See, for instance, Steve Nadis. “In Search of the Holy Grail.” AIR, March–April 1996, pp. 4–6; Steve Nadis. “The Holy Grail Redux.” AIR, November–December 2001, pp. 6–10l; Steve Nadis, “In Search of Astronomy's Holy Grail,” AIR, May–June 2006, pp. 18–23.
2 Charles Petit, “BBC: Artificial Blood Vessels Coming Along, ‘a Holy Grail of Regenerative Medicine,’” Knight Science Journalism Tracker, http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/?m=200712, December 26, 2007.
3 Tim Radford, “Prosaic Postcards from the Edgy,” Education Guardian, March 5, 2008.
4 Bethany Halford, “A Crusade Against Holy Grails,” Chemical & Engineering News, vol. 87, no. 13, March 30, 2009.
5 I have uttered that word too, but my saying it wasn’t enough.
6 Noah Schachtman. “Navy Pushing Laser ‘Holy Grail’ to Weapons Grade.” Danger Room, Wired Blog Network, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/battlefield-str.html, March 26, 2008.
7 John Johnson Jr., “Rocket Scientists, Car Customizers Flock to Buy Used NASA parts,” Boston Sunday Globe, April 8, 2007, p. A28.
8 “Study Looks at Ways to Sustain Lobster Fishery,” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution press release, July 5, 2006.
9 Jenn Abelson, “Winning Season and Seasoning…,” Boston Globe, April 1, 2009, p. 1.
10 Mary Carmichael, “Scar-free Surgery.” Boston Globe, January 7, 2008, p. C1.
11 Stephen J. Lippard, Accounts of Chemical Research, vol. 11, no. 211, 1978.
12 George Whitesides. Accounts of Chemical Research, vol. 28, no. 91, 1995.
13 Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I sometimes wonder whether that single sentence undermines everything that we’re trying to do here, everything I stand for, as well as everything we’ve accomplished so far. Despite that minor reservation, I wouldn't change a word.
Boys Will Be Boys
Research by and for adolescent males of all ages and sexes
compiled by Katherine Lee, Improbable Research staff
Oral Sex and Preeclampsia
“Correlation Between Oral Sex and a Low Incidence of Preeclampsia: A Role for Soluble HLA in Seminal Fluid?” C.A. Koelman, A.B. Coumans, H.W. Nijman, I.I. Doxiadis, G.A. Dekker, and F.H. Claas, Journal of Reproductive Immunology, vol. 46, no. 2, March 2000, pp. 155–66. (Thanks to Paolo Usai and Eugene Rubach for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, who are at Leiden University Medical Centre, The Netherlands, report that:
Forty-one consecutive primiparous women with a history of proteinuric preeclampsia and a consecutive control group of 44 primiparous women were asked if they practised oral sex (oral ejaculation) with their partner before the index pregnancy. If the answer was positive, they were asked if they were swallowing the ejaculate or not.... Our preliminary data show slightly lower levels of sHLA [soluble human leukocyte antigen] in seminal plasma in the preeclampsia group, although not significantly different from the control groups. An extension of the study is necessary to verify this hypothesis.
Problems With Aging Equipment
“Vacuum Erection Device Use in Elderly Men: A Possible Severe Complication,” R.L. Bratton and H.D. Cassidy, Journal of the American Board of Family Practice, vol. 15, no. 6, November–December 2002, pp. 501–2. (Thanks to Ig Nobel Prize winner Richard Wassersug for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida.
Rectal Perception from Balloon Inflation
“Hyperglycemia-Induced Attenuation of Rectal Perception Depends upon Pattern of Rectal Balloon Inflation,” E. Avsar, O. Ersoz, E. Karisik, Y. Erdogan, N. Bekiroglu, R. Lawrance, S. Akalin, and N.B. Ulusoy, Digestive Diseases and Sciences, vol. 42, 1997, pp. 2206–12. (Thanks to Linda Jacobson for bringing this to our attention.) The authors report:
The results of this study demonstrate that acute hyperglycemia attenuates rectal perception, and this attenuation depends upon the type of distension employed.
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| Detail from the Sorrells/Snyder/Reiss/Eden/Milos/Wilcox/Van Howe study. |
Antarctic Shags: Sexing the Chicks
“A Method for Sexing the Chicks of Antarctic Shags,” R. Casaux, A. Ramón, and A. Baroni, Antarctic Science, vol. 20, 2008, pp. 147–14, DOI:10.1017/S0954102007000818. (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Universidad de Buenos Aires and other institutions, report:
As most of the external morphological characters in the chicks of Antarctic shags have stabilized by 45–50 days old... the use of discriminant functions originally developed for adults could be an appropriate method to sex chicks more than 50 days old.
Mapping the Member
“Fine-touch Pressure Thresholds in the Adult Penis,” Morris L. Sorrells, James L. Snyder, Mark D. Reiss, Christopher Eden, Marilyn F. Milos, Norma Wilcox, and Robert S. Van Howe, BJU International, vol. 100, no. 3, September 2007, pp. 864–9. (Thanks to David Cummings for bringing this to our attention.) the authors report:
OBJECTIVE: To map the fine-touch pressure thresholds of the adult penis in circumcised and uncircumcised men, and to compare the two populations.... The fine-touch sensitivity of 19 locations on the penis was measured using Semmes–Weinstein monofilament touch-test sensory evaluators.
CONCLUSIONS: The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.
AIR Teachers’ Guide
Three out of five teachers agree: curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially in students. If you are one of the other two teachers, AIR and mini-AIR can be powerful tools. Choose your favorite hAIR-raising article and give copies to your students. The approach is simple. The scientist thinks that he (or she, or whatever), of all people, has discovered something about how the universe behaves. So:
• Is this scientist right—and what does “right” mean, anyway?
• Can you think of even one different explanation that works as well or better?
• Did the test really, really, truly, unquestionably, completely test what the author thought he was testing?
• Is the scientist ruthlessly honest with himself about how well his idea explains everything, or could he be suffering from wishful thinking?
• Some people might say this is foolish. Should you take their word for it?
• Other people might say this is absolutely correct and important. Should you take their word for it?
Kids are naturally good scientists. Help them stay that way.
A Golden Mean in Your Mouth
A mathematical gauging of a smile
Dr. Eddy Levin of Harley Street puts a golden ratio, not just golden teeth, into his patients’ mouths. Dr. Levin has been at this for a while. It was he who in 1978 wrote a study called “Dental Esthetics and the Golden Proportion,” which graced pages 244–52 of that year’s September issue of The Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry.1
The golden ratio is a special number that has caught the eye and imagination of mathematicians, of artists, and now, thanks to Dr. Levin, of dentists. Some call it the “golden mean” (philosophers, though, use that phrase to mean something else). Some call it the “golden section.” Some Germans call it, evocatively, the “goldener Schnitt.” Almost everyone calls it beautiful.
The golden ratio is the number you get when you compare the lengths of certain parts of certain perfectly beautiful things (among them: snail shell spirals, the Parthenon in Athens, and Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper”). You’ll find that the ratio of the bigger part to the smaller equals the ratio of the combined length to the bigger. That ratio, that number, is always the same, ever so slightly bigger than 1.6180339.
If doing sums causes you pain, just go find someone who has perfect teeth and who won’t mind you staring into his or her mouth.
Dr. Levin explains on his website2 that many years ago he was both studying math and trying to find out what made teeth look beautiful. “It was at a moment,” he writes, “like when Archimedes got into his bath, that I suddenly realized that the two were connected — the Golden Proportion and the beauty of teeth. I began to put this into practise and started testing my ideas on my patients. My first case was a young girl in a hospital, where I was teaching, whose front teeth were in a terrible state and needed crowning. Despite the scepticism of the other members of staff and the unenthusiastic technicians with whom I had to work and whose co-operation I depended upon, I crowned all her front teeth, using the principles of the Golden Proportion. Everybody, including the young lady herself, agreed that her teeth now looked magnificent.”
Most important, in Dr. Levin’s reckoning, is the simple tooth-to-tooth ratio: “The four front teeth, from central incisor to premolar are the most significant part of the smile and they are in the Golden Proportion to each other.”
Dr. Levin created an instrument called the “golden mean gauge.” Made of stainless steel 1.5 millimeters thick, and retailing for £85, it shows whether the numerous major dental landmarks “are in the Golden Proportion,” and it is suitable for autoclaving.
Dr. Levin also offers a larger version that is “useful for full face measurements” and “useful to measure larger objects or bigger pictures of furniture etc.”
(Thanks to Stanley Eigen for bringing this to our attention.)
References
1. “Dental Esthetics and the Golden Proportion,” E.I. Levin, Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, vol. 40, no. 3, September 1978, pp. 244–52.
2. http://www.goldenmeangauge.co.uk/
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The 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Thursday evening, October 1, 2009
Sanders Theatre
Harvard University
Tickets go on sale in August
Webcast live
The 2009 crop of Ig Nobel Prize winners will be revealed. (And join them, too, for the Ig Informal Lectures, at MIT, on Saturday, October 3.)
Details at www.improbable.com/ig
Puzzling Solutions
Solution to Last Month’s Puzzler
Questions 114-242 in part A of last month’s puzzler all pertain to the study
“Trails and Tentacular Impressions of Orthoconic Cephalopods,” Rousseau H. Flower, Journal of Paleontology, vol. 29, no. 5, September 1955, pp. 857–67.
Question 122 is an exception. Due to a misprint, Question 122 refers to Question 53402, which does not exist. It should, instead, refer to Question 53403, which also does not exist.
With the exception of the answer to Question 122 (for that, see the answer to Question 3), the answers are:
QUESTION 114
Rousseau H. Flower.
QUESTION 115
Flower.
QUESTION 116
Rousseau.
QUESTION 117
See the answer to Question 429 of last month’s Puzzler.
QUESTION 118
H.
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QUESTION 119
The author, Rousseau H. Flower.
QUESTION 121
It is a study by Rousseau H. Flower.
QUESTION 123
No.
QUESTION 124
Yes, it’s reversed, but no, they are neither wombats nor koalas.
QUESTION 125
Mud.
QUESTION 126
In this case, yes.
QUESTION 126
See answer to question 125.
For the answers to questions 127–242 see the answers to questions 436–491 in last month’s Puzzler, and interpolate.
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| A British method for cooking dormouse, as pictured in an 1865 book. Drawing by John Tenniel. |
A Tribute to the Edible Dormouse
The edible dormouse (Myoxus glis) is the star of Giuseppe Carpaneto and Mauro Cristaldi’s 1994 study “Dormice and Man: A Review of Past and Present Relations.” The two Rome-based scholars—Carpaneto at Terza University, Cristaldi at the University of Rome—savor one of the tasty rodent’s two major historical roles. Though some scorned it an agricultural pest, many prized the critter for its succulence.
Carpaneto and Cristaldi suggest that dormouse cuisine and dormouse documentation owe much to the Romans, and almost nothing to earlier civilizations. “The ancient Greeks,” they write, “were not very interested in dormice because they did not eat them.... Oribatius (Fourth Century A.D.), a Byzantine author on medicine, wrote that their meat is untasty and purgative.”
Carpaneto and Cristaldi tell of how things changed once the Romans got cooking:
“A recipe was reported by the gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicus (First Century A.D.) in his work De Re Coquinaria: dormice were served with sophisticated sauces containing fish and spices (pepper, ‘laserpicium’ pine-seeds) often filled with pork meat and with dormouse entrails. Petronius (20?-66 A.D.) in his novel Satyricon described edible dormice served with honey and poppy-seeds during a luxurious dinner.”
The foodstuff became so well appreciated in Calabria, the southwesternmost part of the Italian mainland, that Calabrian dialects now have about 110 words for dormouse. There are also terms for related items, including dormouse-hunter (agglzjiraru), the jars for keeping dormice (ciglirera), and dormouse litter (carfata).
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| The earliest known drawing of a dormouse, done in 1607. |
Modern dormouse hunting in Calabria is often done at night, by smoke-flushing the animals from their den, or by trapping or shooting. There can be a certain romance to this. The study remarks that “Nocturnal hunting consists of shooting at dormice walking on tree branches, silhouetted against the moon-light.”
In Corsican dormouse cooking, “the animals are eviscerated and burnt but not skinned in order to protect the fat layer between the skin and the muscles. Then they are roasted on a grate and the dripping fat gathered on slices of bread.”
Ukrainian chefs “used the fat of the Edible Dormouse in their cookery,” while the French and some of their neighbors “ate roasted dormice after having thrown them into boiling water.”
Carpaneto and Cristaldi say that Lord Rothschild introduced the edible dormouse into England in 1902. (Other sources specify that this occurred in Tring, Hertfordshire, a neighborhood where dormouse is now nearly impossible to find on a restaurant menu.) But some 37 years earlier, a curious book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland documented the preparation of dormouse at a British tea party. Midway through the party, a young visitor named Alice reportedly “got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.”
References
“Dormice and Man: A Review of Past and Present Relations,” Giuseppe M. Carpaneto and Mauro Cristaldi, Hystrix, vol. 6, nos. 1-2, 1994, pp. 303-30.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865.
“Carolus Linnaeus and the Edible Dormouse,” C. Violani and B. Zava, Hystrix, vol. 6, nos. 1-2, 1994, pp. 109-115. The authors report that:
Carolus Linnaeus was totally unacquainted with the Edible Dormouse Myoxus glis (L.), a species not found in Sweden : while describing Mus Rattus in the 10th Edition of the “Systema Naturae” (1758), the Swedish naturalist confessed his ignorance concerning the “Glis” of the ancients
ALSO SEE THE DORMOUSE SOCIETY: http://www.glirarium.org/dormouse/
May We Recommend
Items that merit a trip to the library
Enema Bottle versus Enema Bottle
“Mechanical Performance of Generic and Proprietary Enema Bottles,” D. L. Walsh, R. J. Schroeder, and S. F. Stewart, Journal of Medical Devices, vol. 2, no. 2, June 2008, pp. 025001–6. (Thanks to Mark Dallara for bringing this to our attention.) The authors report:
Enemas containing the anti-inflammatory drug mesalamine are an effective treatment for a distal form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). An IBD patient discovered that a generic mesalamine enema was more difficult and painful to use than the proprietary version. A study was initiated to determine whether these differences were measurable in the laboratory using conventional mechanical test equipment.... The work required to expel the drug from the generic versions during bottle compression was significantly greater than for the proprietary (p<0.01)… These differences between the generic and proprietary bottles are consistent with the patient’s subjective experience.
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The Public Erection of G.S. Brindley
Giles Skey Brindley, MD, FRCP, FRCS, knows how to stand proud. At a 1983 Urodynamics Society lecture in Las Vegas, Dr. Brindley demonstrated—with panache—that he could inject drugs into his penis and thereby cause an erection.
Dr. Brindley had developed the first effective treatment for what was then loosely called “impotence” and today goes by the stiffer euphemism “erectile dysfunction.” His appearance in Las Vegas ensured that the discovery would not go unnoticed.
Two decades later, Laurence Klotz, a University of Toronto urologist, wrote a firsthand account of his experience at that meeting. Titled “How (Not) to Communicate New Scientific Information: A Memoir of the Famous Brindley Lecture,” it graces the November 2005 issue of the urological journal BJU International. Dr. Klotz reports:
[Dr. Brindley] indicated that, in his view, no normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be eroticaliy stimulating or erection-inducing. He had, he said, therefore injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes to make it possible to exhibit the results.... He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing. But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, “I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence.” With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row.
 
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| Giles Brindley playing the logical bassoon, an instrument of his own invention, as described in his 1968 study “The Logical Bassoon.” Portrait by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff. |
And so on.
Dr. Brindley’s activities range wide in science and medicine, and also in music. He invented a new variety of bassoon, and in 1973 brought to bear many of his diverse interests in a study in the journal Nature called “Speed of Sound in Bent Tubes and the Design of Wind Instruments.”
The self-injection erection experiment entered the medical literature in 1986, in the March issue of the British Journal of Pharmacology, in the form of Dr. Brindley’s treatise “Pilot Experiments on the Action of Drugs Injected into the Human Corpus Cavernosum Penis.” Dr. Brindley explains that:
Drugs were injected through a 0.5 millimeter x 16 millimeter needle into the right corpus cavernosum in the proximal third of the free penis. The penis was then massaged systematically to distribute the drug throughout both corpora cavernosa as follows...
There follows a 307-word description of the drugs and of the massage technique, which reads in part:
The penis was firmly pinched transversely at least six different places along its length.... The stiffness of the penis was assessed by attempting to bend it to right and to left with the fingers, applying forces of about 500 g wt in opposite directions to the glans and the middle of the shaft. In Tables 1 and 2, ‘flexible 20’ means that this procedure caused it to bend through an angle 20 degrees, i.e. so the central axes of the proximal and distal ends intersected at an angle of 160 degrees from about the fortieth to the hundredth minute the penis was smaller than would have been expected for my thermal state.
The final word can be left to Dr. Klotz, who says: “Professor Brindley belongs in the pantheon of famous British eccentrics who have made spectacular contributions to science. The story of his lecture deserves a place in the urological history books.”
(Thanks to Jean Monahan and Geneva Robertson for bringing this to my attention.)
References
“How (Not) to Communicate New Scientific Information: A Memoir of the Famous Brindley Lecture,” Laurence Klotz, BJU International, November 2005, Vol. 96 Issue 7, pp. 956-957.
“Speed of Sound in Bent Tubes and the Design of Wind Instruments,” Giles S. Brindley, Nature, vol. 246, December 21, 1973, pp. 479-80.
“The Logical Bassoon,” Giles S. Brindley, Galpin Society Journal, vol. 21, March 1968, pp. 152-61.
“Pilot Experiments on the Action of Drugs Injected into the Human Corpus Cavernosum Penis,” G.S. Brindley, British Journal of Pharmacology, vol. 87, no. 3, March 1986, pp. 495-500.
The penis was then massaged systematically to distribute the drug....
The penis was firmly pinched transversely at least six different places along its length....
The stiffness of the penis was assessed by attempting to bend it to right and to left with the fingers, applying forces of about 500 g wt in opposite directions to the glans and the middle of the shaft. In Tables 1 and 2, ‘flexible 20’ means that this procedure caused it to bend through an angle 20 degrees, i.e. so the central axes of the proximal and distal ends intersected at an angle of 160 degrees from about the fortieth to the hundredth minute the penis was smaller than would have been expected for my thermal state.
Soft Is Hard
Further evidence why the “soft” sciences are the hardest to do well
Smells and the Looker
“Olfactory Cues Modulate Facial Attractiveness,” M. Luisa Demattè, Robert Österbauer, and Charles Spence, Chemical Senses, vol. 32, no. 6, 2007, pp. 603–10. (Thanks to Martin Gardiner for bringing this to our attention.) Spence is a 2008 Ig Nobel Prize winner for an unrelated project involving electronically modifying the sound of a Pringles potato chip being chewed and measuring the chewer’s perception of the chip’s crispness. The authors, at the University of Oxford and at the Università degli Studi di Trento, report:
Sixteen female participants judged the attractiveness of a series of male faces presented briefly on a computer monitor using a 9-point visual rating scale. While viewing each face, the participants were simultaneously presented with either clean air or else with 1 of 4 odorants from a custom-built olfactometer. We included 2 pleasant odors (geranium and a male fragrance) and 2 unpleasant odors (rubber and body odor) as confirmed by pilot testing. The results showed that the participants rated the male faces as being significantly less attractive in the presence of an unpleasant odor.... Interestingly, this pattern of results was unaffected by whether the odors were body relevant (the body odor and the male fragrance) or not (the rubber and geranium odors).
Important Hand Clasping and Arm Folding
“Functional Importance of Hand Clasping and Arm Folding,” M. Reiss, H.A. Freye, and G. Reiss, Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol. 85, no. 3, part 2, December 1997, pp. 1209–10. The authors, who are at the University of Dresden, Germany, explain that:
The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between handedness and hand clasping or arm folding. Our own investigations have shown no relationship as is consistent with most results in the literature which suggests only minor functional importance of these two signs of latent handedness.
Carmen Miranda and Her Hat
“’The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat’: Carmen Miranda, a Spectacle of Ethnicity,” Shari Roberts, Cinema Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, Spring 1993, pp. 3–23.
Being Carmen Miranda
“Cognitive Dissonance and the Perception of Natural Environments,” Emily Balcetis and David Dunning, Psychological Science, vol. 18, no. 10, October 2007, pp. 917–21. (Thanks to Keith Niall for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at Ohio University and at Cornell University. Dunning shared the 2000 Ig Nobel Psychology Prize for unrelated work. Here the authors report:
Two studies demonstrated that the motivation to resolve cognitive dissonance affects the visual perception of physical environments. In Study 1, subjects crossed a campus quadrangle wearing a costume reminiscent of Carmen Miranda. In Study 2, subjects pushed themselves up a hill while kneeling on a skateboard. Subjects performed either task under a high-choice, low-choice, or control condition. Subjects in the high-choice conditions, presumably to resolve dissonance, perceived the environment to be less aversive than did subjects in the low-choice and control conditions, seeing a shorter distance to travel (Study 1) and a shallower slope to climb (Study 2). These studies suggest that the impact of motivational states extends from social judgment down into perceptual processes.
 |
| Detail from the Mark Campbell Williams study. |
Being Mark Campbell Williams
“Rich Pictures on the Path Towards Systemic Being,” Mark Campbell Williams, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, vol. 16, no. 4, July–August 1999, pp 369–73. The author, at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, explains:
I interpret some of my own rich pictures from a five-year investigation of teaching reform in a university business computing course. I reflect on how the pictures reveal repressed or hidden problems and opportunities on my own self-reflective practice towards becoming what Richard Bowden terms “being systemic.”
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Introducing Improbable TV
We are pleased to introduce the Improbable Research TV series.
What: Three-minute videos about research that makes people laugh, then think.
Where: On the web, at www.improbable.com and elsewhere.
Annals of Improbable Research
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Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam improbable@nmr.nl
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Northeastern U.
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“When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”—Richard Feynman
Annals of Improbable Research Editorial Board
Anthropology
Jonathan Marks, U. North Carolina
Archaeology
Angela E. Close, U. Washington
Astrochemistry
Scott Sandford, NASA/Ames
Astronomy
Robert Kirshner, Harvard U.
Jay M. Pasachoff, Williams Coll.
Eric Schulman, Alexandria, Virginia
David Slavsky. Loyola U., Chicago
Biochemistry
Edwin Krebs*, U. Washington
Biology
Dany Adams, Tufts U.
Lawrence Dill*******, Simon Fraser U.
Biomaterials
Alan S. Litsky, Ohio State U.
Biophysics
Leonard X. Finegold, Drexel U.
Biotechnology
A. Stephen Dahms, Alfred E. Mann Foundation
Bureaucracy
Miriam Bloom, SciWrite, Jackson, MS
Cardiology
Thomas Michel*****, Harvard Med. School
Chemistry
Dudley Herschbach*, Harvard U.
William Lipscomb*, Harvard U.
Computer Science
Dennis Frailey, Texas Instruments, Plano, TX
Robert T. Morris***, MIT
Margo Seltzer, Harvard U.
Economics
Ernst W. Stromsdorfer, Washington St. U.
Engineering
Dean Kamen, DEKA Research
Food Research
Massimo Marcone, U. of Guelph
Forensic Biology & Criminalistics
Mark Benecke, Int’l Forensic Res., Köln
Functional Biology & Morphology
Frank Fish, West Chester U.
Rebecca German, Johns Hopkins U.
Richard Wassersug*******, Dalhousie U.
Genetics
Michael Hengartner, U. of Zürich
Geology
John C. Holden, Omak, WA
John Splettstoesser, Waconia, MN
History of Science & Medicine
Tim Healey, Barnsley, England
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Falk Fish, Orgenics, Ltd., Yavne, Israel
Infectious Diseases
James Michel*****, Harvard U.
Intelligence
Marilyn Vos Savant**, New York, NY
Law
William J. Maloney, New York, NY
Ronald A. May, Little Rock, AR
Library & Info Sciences
Regina Reynolds, Library of Congress
George Valas, Budapest, Hungary
Norman D. Stevens, U. of Connecticut
Marine Biology
Magnus Wahlberg*******
U. of Southern Denmark
Materials Science
Robert M. Rose, MIT
Medical Ethics
Erwin J.O. Kompanje, Erasmus MC University, Rotterdam
Methodology
Rod Levine, National Insts of Health
Molecular Biology
Walter Gilbert*, Harvard U.
Richard Roberts*, New England Biolabs
Molecular Pharmacology
Lloyd Fricker, Einstein Coll. of Medicine
Neuroengineering
Jerome Lettvin, MIT
Neurology
Thomas D. Sabin, Tufts U.
Nutrition
Brian Wansink*******, Cornell U.
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Kees Moeliker*******, Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Pek van Andel*******, Medical Faculty Groningen, The Netherlands
Eberhard W. Lisse, Swakopmund State Hospital, Namibia
Orthopedic Surgery
Glenn R. Johnson, Bemidji, MN
Paleontology
Sally Shelton, Museum of Geology, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Earle Spamer, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA
Parasitology
Wendy Cooper, Australian Pest & Vet. Med. Auth.
Pediatrics
Ronald M. Mack, Bowman Gray School of Med.
Pharmacology
Stanton G. Kimmel, Normal, OK
Philosophy
George Englebretson, Bishop’s U., Quebec
Physics
Len Fisher*******, Bristol U., UK
Jerome Friedman*, MIT
Sheldon Glashow*, Boston U.
Karl Kruszelnicki*******, U. Sydney
Harry Lipkin, Weizmann Inst.
Douglas Osheroff*, Stanford U.
Frank Wilczek*, MIT
Political Science
Richard G. Neimi****, Rochester, NY
Psychiatry and Neurology
Robert Hoffman, Daly City, CA
Psychology
Dan Ariely*******, Duke U
Louis G. Lippman, Western Wash. U.
G. Neil Martin, Middlesex U., UK
Chris McManus*******, University Coll. London
Neil J. Salkind, U. of Kansas
Pulmonary Medicine
Traian Mihaescu, Iasi, Romania
Science Policy
Al Teich, American Assn for the Advancement of Science
Stochastic Processes
Paolo Bianco, Rome, Italy
Swordswallowing
Dan Meyer *******
Cutting Edge Innertainment
Women's Health
Andrea Dunaif, Northwestern U.
JoAnn Manson, Brigham & Women's Hosp.
A Guide to the Stars
* Nobel Laureate
** world’s highest IQ
*** convicted felon
**** misspelled
***** sibling rivalry
****** six stars
******* Ig Nobel Winner
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ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 online
Volume 15, Number 3
May–June 2009