Improbable Research

G.G.-Grandma?s Hand, As It Really Was

Here is a corrected version of my great-great grandmother?s hand. Not only is the drawing corrected (one of the fingers was backwards?don?t know how that happened) but more important, so is the information. This was a model 24-C, the kind she usually supplied to scientists and heads of state. The fork was removable in the heads-ofstate version. Thank you for running this corrected version.

A.K. Masterson

Birmingham, UK

That?s an excerpt from the ?AIR Vents? column published in AIR 13:5.

My feet stink. I have over the past 43 years conducted a series of experiments to establish that this is true, and to delineate the limits within which it is true. I would place a test subject in close proximity to my feet, and observe their consequent behavior. I have done this with more than 4300 test subjects. These include: rats; cats; mice; dormice; ferrets; sheep; bees; ants; gnats; dingos; a llama; pigeons; ducks; geese; cows; aphids; shrews; a salmon. hedgehogs; foxes; ermine; earthworms; and human beings. All test subjects, with certain exceptions that I will detail in a separate letter, displayed aversive behavior. In layman?s terms: they fled.

Would you be interested in publishing a formal account of my experiments if I were to write it up? (I enclose a photograph of the American Civil War Rear Admiral Andrew H. Foote, whose name and?more to the point?whose own lengthy personal discovery of the power of smelly feet I have adopted as a mildly jocund inspiration. The photograph does not show Admiral Foote?s foot, an omission which I am sure I do not need to explain to you.)

Thomas P. D?Arcy, MD

Clive, Cumbria, UK

(That?s an excerpt from the article ?Air Vents (Exhalations from our readers),? published in AIR 14:1.)

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.

Investigator Kathy Rossiter writes:

I have just heard about the Answers Research Journal, the new publication that describes itself as “a professional, peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework.” It’s quite a piece of work!

I took a look at their web site, and I have two questions:

1) Is the Annals of Improbable Research the real publisher of this thing?

2) Is that where you publish the articles that people submit to you that aren’t very funny or are just plain stupid?

EDITOR’S NOTE: The answers to investigator Rossiter’s questions are (1) No and (2) No.

Investigator Edmond Orignac contributes to the MAY WE RECOMMEND: The Science of G. Bush project:

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It should be noted that there was a George Bush who was a professor of Hebrew and Oriental Litterature at the New York City University (I guess this was the old name of CUNY) in the 1830s.

George Bush has authored a Grammar of the Hebrew language that has been digitalized by Google.

George Bush was also a Bible scholar. A notable work of George Bush is “The millenium of the Apocalypse“.

Other works include:
Genesis
Joshua
Deuteronomy
Exodus
Resurrection of the Body
Leviticus
Judges
The book of numbers
New Testament

George Bush is also the author of an anticlerical pamphlet
entitled “Priesthood and Clergy unknown to Christianity”

He was apparently a Swedenborgian:

Statement of reasons for embracing the doctrines and disclosures of Emanuel Swedenborg
Mesmer and Swedenborg
Response to Ralph Waldo Emerson on Swedenborg
Reply to Dr. Woods lectures on Swedenborgianism

There are probably other works by this author that have not been digitalized, but might be found via the Library of Congress.

I hope that theology and oriental litterature can be a valuable addition to the Science of George Bush.

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