Which do people prefer – dental floss that is waxed or dental floss that is unwaxed? A study called Patient Preference for Waxed or Unwaxed Dental Floss explores the question to a depth that was unprecedented in 1990, when it appeared in the Journal of Periodontology. Twenty-two years later, the report’s findings remain largely unchallenged. Manufacturers of […]
Category: Extra-Improbable columns
Our columns in other publications — The ‘Feedback’ column in New Scientist magazine, beginning in September 2022, and the “Improbable Research”column that ran for 13 years in The Guardian newspaper.
The scientist who ate 100 ants, repeatedly
There once was a man who swallowed some ants. ‘Twas done with intent, not merely from chance. The ants were alive, But did not survive. The research was done without government grants. The man was and is Volker Sommer, [pictured here] professor of evolutionary anthropology at University College London. He and colleagues Oliver Allon and Alejandra Pascual-Garrido travelled […]
Snakebit, Electrified, and Doubly Surprised
The self-inflicted snake/electroshock saga of patient X [pictured below] turns out, 21 years after it entered the public record, to have an earlier chapter that never, until this moment, made it into print. That’s patient X, the former US marine who suffered a bite from his pet rattlesnake. Patient X, the man who immediately after […]
Russian tank invention: To lay waste upon the enemy
Aleksandr Georgievich Semenov patented an efficiently disgusting weapon system. Using his method, soldiers inside an armoured tank, under battle conditions, can dispose of their biological waste products in an unwasteful way: encasing those materials, together with explosives, in artillery shells that they then fire at the enemy. Semenov, residing in St Petersburg, can and does […]