Dr. Head and Dr. Brain, and the medical journal they edited (which is called Brain); kids with televisions; the peculiar faces of corporate leaders; and the medical maladies called “cello scrotum” and “guitar nipple” — all these all turn up in this week’s Improbable Research podcast.
Click on the “Venetian blinds” icon — at the lower right corner here — to select whichever week’s episode you want to hear:
SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free.
This week, Marc Abrahams tells about:
- Head on Brain in Brain. (“Henry Head: The Man and His Ideas,” Russell Brain, Brain, vol. 84, no. 4, December 1961, pp. 561–6. / “Some Reflections on Brain and Mind,” Lord Brain, Brain, vol. 86, no. 3, 1963, pp. 381-402. / “A Human Experiment in Nerve Division,” W.H.R. Rivers and Henry Head, Brain, vol. 31, no. 3, 1908, pp. 323–450. / “Clinical Meeting Held May 10, 1923: Case of Right Frontal Tumour; Cracked-pot Percussion Note over Right Frontal Bone; Left Palmar Reflex,” Dr. George Riddoch and Dr. Russell Brain, Brain, vol. 46, no. 2, 1923, p. 246. / “Speech and Cerebral Localization,” Henry Head, Brain, vol. 46, no. 4, 1923, pp. 355–528. Featuring a dramatic reading by Richard Baguley.)
- “Soft Is Hard” research. (“Characteristics Associated With Older Adolescents Who Have a Television in Their Bedrooms,” Daheia J. Barr-Anderson, Patricia van den Berg, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, and Mary Story, Pediatrics, vol. 121, no. 4, April 2008, pp. 718–24. / “The Face of Success: Inferences From Chief Executive Officers’ Appearance Predict Company Profits,” N.O. Rule and N. Ambady, Psychological Science, vol. 19, no. 2, 2008, pp. 109–11, / “Web-based Student Evaluation of Professors: The Relations Between Perceived Quality, Easiness and Sexiness,” James Felton, John Mitchell and Michael Stinson, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 29, no. 1, 2004, pp. 91–108. / “Attractiveness, Easiness, and Other Issues: Student Evaluations of Professors on RateMyProfessors.com,” James Felton, Peter T. Koper, John Mitchell and Michael Stinson, SSRN Working Paper #918283, July 2006. Featuring a dramatic reading by Jean Berko Gleason.)
- Cello scrotum. (“Guitar Nipple,” P. Curtis, British Medical Journal, April 27, 1974, p. 226. / “Cello Scrotum,” J.M. Murphy, British Medical Journal, May 11, 1974, p. 335. / ” ‘Cello Scrotum’ Questioned,” Philip E. Shapiro, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, vol. 24, no. 4, April 1991, p. 665. / “Cello Scrotum Confession,” Elaine Murphy and John M. Murphy, British Medical Journal, January 27, 2009, p. 288. / “Pseudo-Cello Scrotum?” Anand Deshpande, British Medical Journal, vol. 388, January 27, 2009, p. 288. Featuring a dramatic reading by Chris Cotsapis.)
- The 25th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony (and webcast), which will happen on Thursday, September 17, 2015.
The mysterious John Schedler or the shadowy Bruce Petschek perhaps did the sound engineering this week.
The Improbable Research podcast is all about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — real research, about anything and everything, from everywhere —research that may be good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless. CBS distributes it, both on the new CBS Play.it web site, and on iTunes and Spotify).