Improbable Research

Investigator Nicole Bordes writes:

I came across this acronym finder web site. It makes for fascinating exploring. Possibly it is a resource for the members and sub-bureaus of The Bureaucracy Club.

This is a reminder that if you would like to nominate a Committee on Committees for the Committee on Committees Of the Year Award, please send pertinent info to the nomination committee of the Committee on Committees of the Year Award Oversight Committee.

(Before sending your information, please wait the required 90 days.)

The Bureaucracy Club of Amsterdam has just joined The Bureaucracy Club.

Investigator Wolf Roder complains in reference to the search for the one, true Fledermausmensch:

You wrote that "The word ‘batman’ translates into German as ‘Fledermausmensch.’"

Batman surely is, and always has been, a man (male of the human species). Thus "batman" would translate as "Fledermausmann"  (with two n, please). Now that you have batman translated, how about "batty" asuming this means bat-like? Fledermausisch?

Today’s entry in our ongoing series "Real or Concocted?" is a press release purportedly issued by the University of Buffalo. Here are excerpts:

Results showed that in the first year of marriage for 20-somethings, husbands are more likely to start or resume smoking marijuana if their wives smoke marijuana. … [Husbands] do not seem to influence their wives’ marijuana smoking. …

Previous research by [the same researchers] found that husbands’ drinking influenced wives’ drinking during the first year of marriage. However, from the first to second year, wives’ drinking influenced husbands’ drinking.

The research is purportedly funded by an organization calling itself The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.