Improbable Research

Einstein’s Pork Carcass Composition Equations

Albert Einstein has a signature equation, e=mc2, which predicts how energy relates to mass. M.E. Einstein of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, has a whole set of equations, which predict pork carcass composition.

M.E. and several collaborators published a series of studies — seven of them so far — in the Journal of Animal Science. Their “Evaluation of Alternative Measures of Pork Carcass Composition” appeared in 2001. It is a minor classic in the history of pork production prediction literature.

(That’s an excerpt from the article “Other Einsteins (Part 1),” published in AIR 11:1.)

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.

Troy Hurtubise is valiantly trying to auction another of his anti-grizzly suits of armor. This time, he is offering up the most famous of the bunch.

Back in early 2007, Troy? ? the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize winner in Safety Engineering ? attempted to auction off his “Trojan” combat suit. Unfortunately, the $35,000 minimum price was not met. This is not the first time Troy has had trouble finding eBay purchasers for his grizzly-resistant suits.

Troy is again attempting to recoup some of the money he’s put into his various projects (flame paste, the “Angel Light”, and of course, his various grizzly suits), this time by auctioning off the Ursus Mk VI suit featured in the documentary “Project Grizzly”. The suit is currently priced at a bit over US$2,000, and Troy hopes the ending price will exceed $40,000 by the auction’s end on July 14th.

Investigator Rose Fox writes:

Here you will find many of the yeasty books written by Dr. William G. Crook. (Occasional co-authors include Elizabeth B. Crook and Cynthia Crook.)

Dr. Crook’s research on yeast hypersensitivity has been prominently covered on Quackwatch. So apparently he was a quack as well as a Crook.

The new issue of BMJ [June 28, 2008] has a letter from a doctor who introduces (though he does not name) a new form of the grand British tradition of otting.

The best known of otting traditions is trainspotting. British citizens, some of them, also practice planespotting, busspotting [a practice which now draws disapproval from the British Government], and other varieties of otting. These may all be descended from the ancient practice of bird spotting, also known as bird watching.

The new variation is windowspotting. Here is the beginning of the doctor’s letter:

Climate change
Why so many open windows?

The BMJ is to be congratulated on repeatedly returning to the topic of measures to combat climate change, and encouraging doctors to take an interest in the issues. Preventing unnecessary fuel usage is important not only in combating global warming but it also leads to financial gains.

On 28 February I paid a visit to a local general hospital (500 beds plus) to count the number of open windows in all areas?there were 358. The building is some 30 years old. Most of the original windows were replaced with double glazed ones some years ago.I have difficulty working out how effective the double glazing is when the windows are open.

On Good Friday (21 March) I visited a friend in a surgical block at another hospital ? on one face of the block I counted 40 open windows. At yet another hospital on Easter Monday, a particularly chilly day, there were . . .

Barrie Smith, retired physician
Birmingham