Murphys’ Law — and confusion about who gave it that name — figure heavily in this week’s Improbable Research podcast.
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This week, Marc Abrahams tells about:
- The birth of “Murphy’s Law”. (For a detailed history of the naming and subsequent history of Murphy’s Law — and the heroic role played by John Paul Stapp, and the role played by Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr. — see “The Fastest Man on Earth,” by Nick T. Spark, Annals of Improbable Research, volume 9, number 5, September/October 2003. Much of the account here is based on Nick Spark’s research, which he eventually expanded into a book called A History of Murphy’s Law. Some additional information is also available from the museum at Edwards Air Force Base.) Here’s video of John Paul Stapp in some of those experiments:
- Ig and beyond. (The Ig Nobel Prizes. / “Touchscreen Performance and Knowledge Transfer in the Red-Footed Tortoise (Chelonoidis carbonaria),” Julia Mueller-Paul, Anna Wilkinson, Ulrike Aust, Michael Steurer, Geoffrey Hall, and Ludwig Huber, Behavioural Processes, vol. 106, July 2014, pp. 187–92. / “An Introduction to the Mechanics of the Lasso,” Pierre-Thomas Brun, Neil Ribe, and Basile Audoly, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, vol. 470, no. 2171, November 8, 2014. / “Chimpanzees Prefer African and Indian Music Over Silence,” Morgan E. Mingle, Timothy M. Eppley, Matthew W. Campbell, Katie Hall, Victoria Horner, and Frans B. M. de Waal, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, vol. 40, no. 4, 2014, pp. 502–5. Featuring dramatic readings by Bruce Petschek.)
- Some Missing Teeth in Old France. (“Pulling Teeth in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” Colin Jones, Past and Present, vol. 166, no. 1, February 2000, pp. 100–45. / “The King’s Two Teeth,” Colin Jones, History Workshop Journal, no. 65, Spring 2008, pp. 79–95. / The Smile Revolution in Eighteenth Century Paris, Colin Jones, Oxford University Press, 2014..)
- Icky-Cutesy Research. (“Which Witch is Which? A Study of the Stock Structure of Witch Flounder (Glyptocephalus cynoglossus) in the Newfoundland Region,” D.J. Fairbairn, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, vol. 38, no. 7, 1981, pp. 782–94. / The Origin of Feces: What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology, and a Sustainable Society, David Waltner-Toews, ECW Press, 2013. / “Epidermal Grafting Using a Novel Suction Blister–Harvesting System for the Treatment of Pyoderma gangrenosum,” Nicholas A. Richmond, Sonia A. Lamel, Liza R. Braun, Alejandra C. Vivas, Thomas Serena, and Robert S. Kirsner, JAMA Dermatology, 150, no. 9, 2014, pp. 999–1000. / “ ‘Punk’ Rock Can Be Bad for You: A Case of Surgical Emphysema from a ‘Punk’ Rocker’s Leather Jacket,” N. Lane and A. Graudins, Emergency Medicine Journal, vol. 23, no. 6, June 2006, p. e35.. Featuring dramatic readings by Bruce Petschek.)
- Magnetic chickens. (Wiltschko, Wolfgang, Rafael Freire, Ursula Munro, Thorsten Ritz, Lesley Rogers, Peter Thalau, and Roswitha Wiltschko (2007). ‘The Magnetic Compass of Domestic Chickens, Gallus gallus.’ Journal of Experimental Biology, 210 (13): 2300–10. Freire, Rafael, Ursula H. Munro, Lesley J. Rogers, Roswitha Wiltschko, and Wolfgang Wiltschko (2005). ‘Chickens Orient Using a Magnetic Compass.’ Current Biology, 15 (16): R620–21. Duncan, Ian J. H., and V. G. Kite (1986). ‘Some Investigations into Motivation in the Domestic Fowl.’ Applied Animal Behaviour Science 18 (3–4): 387–88. Widowski, Tina M., and Ian J. H. Duncan (2000). ‘Working for a Dustbath: Are Hens Increasing Pleasure Rather than Reducing Suffering?’ Applied Animal Behaviour Science 68 (1): 39–53.)
The mysterious John Schedler perhaps did the sound engineering this week.
The podcast is all about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — research about anything and everything, from everywhere —research that’s good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless. CBS distributes it, both on the new CBS Play.it web site, and on iTunes.