Improbable Research

This Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, comes  Science Friday’s annual Ig Nobel broadcast (highlights from the gala ceremony). Listen on NPR stations, or listen on the internet. In many US east coast cities, the Ig broadcast begins at 2 pm — BUT broadcast times vary, so check with your station. (Science Friday is a two-hour program; the Ig will be the first of those hours.)

Please spread the word! BONUS: Listen to archived SciFri Ig Nobel broadcasts from many past years.

A new physics analysis echoes, in a way, the message brought to MacBeth in act 5, scene 5:

As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

Actually, trees almost always stay put. But when there’s snow, the bumps (called “moguls”) sometimes do move uphill. A study by three researchers in Colorado explains:

The winner of this week’s How to Frame a Question competition is the author of this headline:

Could Chicken Feathers Be The Salvation Of Hydrogen?

That individual may be Christopher deMorro, who wrote the accompanying article in Gas 2.0. But if Christopher deMorro did not write the headline, the winner is whichever other person did.

(Thanks to improbable researcher Leslie Lawrence for bringing this to our attention.)

A University of Haifa press release says, without giving much detail,  that

Israeli gerbils are more cautious than their Jordanian friends… According to the researchers, the … higher number of agricultural farms in Israel… [not only creates] a gulf between habitats and thereby cause an increase in the number of species in the region, but they also hail one of the most problematic of intruders in the world: the red fox. On the Jordanian side, the red fox is far less common, so that Jordanian gerbils can allow themselves to be more carefree.

This is in some ways reminiscent of a 2005 University of Florida study called “Effect of Prenatal or Postnatal High Fat Diet on Physiology and Behavior of Borderline Hypertensive Rats“, and in many ways not. (Thanks to improbable researcher Steve Nadis for bringing this to our attention.)

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA)  announced a list of  foodstuffs that terrorists are tempted to use as tools. The TSA also identified a food that’s at low risk of being misused. The official word:

Travelers should know that while pies are permitted through the security checkpoint, here is a list of liquids, gels and aerosol items that you should put in your checked bag, ship ahead, or leave at home.

Comestibles that are too tempting to terrorists include: gravy; jams; jellies; peanut butter; maple syrup; salsa; sauces; and many others. See the full list for details. NOTE: The TSA has not described the test protocols used to obtain these results.

On the question of wattles:

[Carolynn] Smith created four animated roosters. The animated roosters (see second part of the video below) all acted the same, performing the tidbitting routine over and over, and they all looked the same, except for their wattles. One had a normal wattle, one was missing his, a third had a wattle that didn’t move, and the fourth had an extra floppy wattle.