What happens when giveaway contests go awry? Bill Hearn, a partner in the Toronto law firm McMillan Binch LLP, is a prominent figure in this specialised area of research…. So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian. Read it here.
Month: August 2004
In Memorium: Gretchen Worden
Our friend Gretchen Worden, the director and soul of the Mutter Museum, has died. We and the world will miss her and her view of the world very much. Here is a passage from Gretchen’s obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “In most museums you go to look at objects,” she wrote in [her] book’s [The […]
Everybody Loves Trinkaus
John Trinkaus, winner of the 2003 Ig Nobel Literature Prize, has a growing legion of admirers. Read Trinkaus’s Ig citation here. Read an admirer’s rhapsody here. And read the classic Annals of Improbable Research article “Trinkaus – An Informal Look.” here.
Leeches Approved
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has for the first time cleared the commercial marketing of leeches for medicinal purposes. … Leeches have been used as an alternative treatment to blood-letting and amputation for several thousand years. They reached their height of medicinal use in the mid- 1800?s. Today they are used in medicine throughout […]
August mini-AIR
The August issue of mini-AIR just went out. Read it here.
Bryozoans Are Beautiful
Bryozoans are beautiful creatures. Or at least they photograph well. See some lovely pictures on the front and back covers of volume 10, no. 3 of the Annals of Improbable Research. See those here. The photos were taken by Simon Hall of the University of Bristol. Read one of his research reports about Bryozoans here.