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SEPTEMBER|OCTOBER 2008 (volume 14, number 5) $6.50 US|$9.50 CAN 0 2 74470 88921 09>
ANNALS OF ANNALS OF Spot Research, Dot Research, Windowspotting… Special Issue: Dots and Spots Dots and Spots 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2008 | vol. 14, no. 5 www.improbable.com © 2008 Annals of Improbable Research ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 online AIR, P.O. Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238, USA “Improbable Research” and “Ig” and the tumbled thinker logo are all reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. 617-491-4437 FAX: 617-661-0927 www.improbable.com air@improbable.com EDITORIAL: marca@chem2.harvard.edu
Marc Abrahams Alexander Kohn
Marc Abrahams marca@chem2.harvard.edu
Lisa Birk European Bureau Kees Moeliker, Bureau Chief Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam improbable@nmr.nl Steve Farrar, Edinburgh Desk Chief Erwin J.O. Kompanje Willem O. de Jongste “When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”—Richard Feynman Commutative Editor Stanley Eigen Northeastern U.
Mark Dionne Dissociative Editor Rose Fox
Contributing Editors Otto Didact, Stephen Drew, Emil Filterbag, Karen Hopkin, Alice Kaswell, Nick Kim, Richard Lederer, Katherine Lee, Bissel Mango, Steve Nadis, Nan Swift, Tenzing Terwilliger, Marina Tsipis, Bertha Vanatian VP, Human Resources Robin Abrahams Research Researchers Kristine Danowski, Martin Gardiner, Jessica Girard, Tom Gill, Mary Kroner, Wendy Mattson, Srinivasan Rajagopalan, Tom Roberts, Naomi Uesaka,Tom Ulrich
Carrie Gallo Design and Art Geri Sullivan/PROmote Communications Lois Malone/Rich & Famous Graphics
Barbara Andersson Circulation (Counter-clockwise) James Mahoney Webmaster Julia Lunetta General Factotum (web) Jesse Eppers Technical Eminence Grise Dave Feldman Art Director emerita Peaco Todd Webmaster emerita Amy Gorin Annals of Improbable Research The journal of record for inflated research and personalities Introducing Improbable TV We are pleased to introduce the Improbable Research TV series. WhAT: Three-minute videos about research that makes people laugh, then makes them think. WhERE: On the web, at www.improbable.com and elsewhere. Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2008 | vol. 14, no. 5 | 1 www.improbable.com Contents The features marked with a star (*) are based entirely on material taken straight from standard research (and other Official and Therefore Always Correct) literature. Many of the other articles are genuine, too, but we don’t know which ones. Special Section: Dots and Spots 6 Dots and Spots Research Review* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell 7 Windowspotting* — Helen Ahanbasket 8 How Big, How Small* — Ernest Ersatz 10
The Inventive Inventions of Dotts* — Stephen Drew 12
Tidman and the Masquerades* — Nan Swift 14
Spots Where the Spotted Were Spotted* — Stephen Drew On the Front Cover Dotted spots composed from photographs of leopards, dalmatian dogs, spotted beetles, spotted eagle rays, leopard fish, and other animals. Collage by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff. On the Back Cover People atop a big plastic bubble at the Hayward Gallery, London, June 2008, photographed from within the bubble. Photo: Stephen Drew, Improbable Research staff.
(see
WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM for details of these and other events) Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony and live webcast — October 2, 2008 Ig Informal Lectures — October 4, 2008 American Physical Society, Dayton, Ohio — October 10, 2008 Genoa Science Festival — October 24, 2008 Science Friday (NPR) Ig Nobel radio broadcast — November 28, 2008
16
The Tasting of the Shrew* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell 18
PubMed Goes to the Movies* — Robert Pyatt Improbable Research Reviews* 4 Improbable Research Review* — Dirk Manley 5 Improbable Medical Review* — Bertha Vanatian 22
Boys Will Be Boys* — Katherine Lee 28
Soft Is Hard* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell and Bissell Mango 29
Footnoted in Passing* — Stephen Drew 30
May We Recommend* — Stephen Drew News & Notes IFC
Introducing Improbable TV 2
3 Improbable Research Editorial Board 9 Teachers’ Guide 13 HMO-NO News: Self-Allergy Fear Alleviation! 15 Ig Nobel Invitation 21 Medical End Notes* — Caroline Richmond 24
Puzzling Solutions — Emil Filterbag 24
AIR books 25
Poem: 37 Therapists* — Jeremy Gorman 32
CARTOON: “Genetic Engineering Homework” — Nick Kim 32
Back Issues IBC
Unclassified Ads ®
Read something new and improbable every weekday on the Improbable Research blog, on our web site: WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM
2 | Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2008 | vol. 14, no. 5 www.improbable.com AIR Vents Exhalations from our readers Prune Juice for the Soul Can you help me locate a book that was published about ten years ago it was very popular among scientists I wish I bought a copy then but now it seems impossible to find one but you will know where to get one if anyone will the title is “Prune Juice for the Soul.” Bailey R.D. Dockett Indemnification Grants Centre Great Yarmouth, East Anglia,UK “Personality Flared!” After reading so much about the famous photograph of the 1911 Solvay conference at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels, I went through my great-grandfather’s files on the off chance that he had a copy. Success! Here is the photo. It’s not a copy of the pristine original. It’s a copy of the famous version that someone defaced by scribbling over the image of Mel. The rest of the photo is in good shape. You can clearly see many of the “big guns” who were in attendance: Nernst, Brillouin, Solvay himself, Lorentz, Warburg, Perrin, Wien, Curie, Poincaré, Goldschmidt, Planck, Rubens, Sommerfeld, Lindemann, de Broglie, Knudsen, Hasenöhrl, Hostelet, Herzen, Jeans, Rutherford, Kamerlingh, Onnes, Langevin and of course Einstein. A note on the back of the photo, in my great-grandfather’s unmistakable squidgy handwriting, says that there were several versions of this grouping, and that there was considerable argument about who sat or stood next to whom, and above or below whom, and especially of who would be in the photo. There were several versions of the photo, with individual scientists absent from some but not others. As my great-grandfather’s words explain: “Personality flared!” Like your other correspondents, I do no know if there is any surviving photo in which Mel is visible. And my great- grandfather’s notes give no indication as to who it was who so carefully defaced every image in which Mel was present. We are approaching the hundredth anniversary of the conference. Maybe somebody can solve the mystery in time for the gala celebration. P.S. I enclose another photo from my great-grandfather’s collection. It shows Ernest Solvay. Someone, maybe the same person, has defaced (so to speak) Solvay’s hair and beard.
Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2008 | vol. 14, no. 5 | 3 www.improbable.com Additionally: Made in Elsewhere Delarian’s study “Made in Elsewhere” (in AIR 13:7) was an eye-opener. Here are collection: England’s Glory brand matches are proudly advertised as being “made in Sweden.” American Mills brand wash clothes are proudly advertised —to the accompaniment of a drawing of the American flag— as being “made in Pakistan.” I obtained these during travels in those very strange lands England and the U.S.A.
Does anyone have suggestions for cleaning lint off a sculpture made of silicone rubber? We have a small, life-like sculpture of a brain in our collection; Microbiology Roland G. Vela, U. North Texas Molecular Biology Walter Gilbert*, Harvard U. Richard Roberts*, New England Biolabs
Lloyd Fricker, Einstein Coll. of Medicine Neuroengineering Jerome Lettvin, MIT Neurology Thomas D. Sabin, Tufts U. Ornithology Kees Moeliker*******, Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam
Pek van Andel*******, Medical Faculty Groningen, The Netherlands Eberhard W. Lisse, Swakopmund State Hospital, Namibia
Glenn R. Johnson, Bemidji, MN Paleontology Sally Shelton, South Dakota Museum of Geology Earle Spamer, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA Parasitology Wendy Cooper, Australian Pest & Vet. Med. Auth.
Ronald M. Mack, Bowman Gray School of Med.
Stanton G. Kimmel, Normal, OK Philosophy George Englebretson, Bishop’s U., Quebec Anthropology Jonathan Marks, U. North Carolina Archaeology Angela E. Close, U. Washington Astrochemistry Scott Sandford, NASA/Ames Astronomy Robert Kirshner, Harvard U. Jay M. Pasachoff, Williams Coll. Eric Schulman, Alexandria, Virginia David Slavsky. Loyola U., Chicago
Edwin Krebs*, U. Washington Biology Dany Adams, Forsyth Center Lawrence Dill*******, Simon Fraser U.
Alan S. Litsky, Ohio State U. Biophysics Leonard X. Finegold, Drexel U. Biotechnology A. Stephen Dahms, Alfred E. Mann Foundation
Miriam Bloom, SciWrite, Jackson, MS Cardiology Thomas Michel*****, Harvard Med. School Chemistry Dudley Herschbach*, Harvard U. William Lipscomb*, Harvard U.
Dennis Frailey, Texas Instruments, Plano, TX Robert T. Morris***, MIT
Ernst W. Stromsdorfer, Washington St. U. Engineering Dean Kamen, DEKA Research A Guide to the Stars * Nobel Laureate ** world’s highest IQ *** convicted felon **** misspelled ***** sibling rivalry ****** six stars ******* Ig Nobel Winner Food Research Massimo Marcone, U. of Guelph Forensic Biology & Criminalistics Mark Benecke, Int’l Forensic Res., Köln Functional Biology & Morphology Frank Fish, West Chester U. Rebecca German, Johns Hopkins U. Richard Wassersug*******, Dalhousie U. Genetics Michael Hengartner, U. of Zürich Geology John C. Holden, Omak, WA John Splettstoesser, Waconia, MN
Tim Healey, Barnsley, England Immunology Falk Fish, Orgenics, Ltd., Yavne, Israel Infectious Diseases James Michel*****, Harvard U. Intelligence Marilyn Vos Savant**, New York, NY Law William J. Maloney, New York, NY Ronald A. May, Little Rock, AR
Regina Reynolds, Library of Congress George Valas, Budapest, Hungary Norman D. Stevens, U. of Connecticut Materials Science Robert M. Rose, MIT Mathematics Lee Segel, Weizmann Inst. Medical Ethics Erwin J.O. Kompanje, Erasmus MC University, Rotterdam
Rod Levine, National Insts of Health Physics Len Fisher*******, Bristol U., UK Jerome Friedman*, MIT Sheldon Glashow*, Boston U. Karl Kruszelnicki*******, U. Sydney Harry Lipkin, Weizmann Inst.
Douglas Osheroff*, Stanford U. Frank Wilczek*, MIT Political Science Richard G. Neimi****, Rochester, NY Psychiatry and Neurology Robert Hoffman, Daly City, CA Psychology Louis G. Lippman, Western Wash. U. G. Neil Martin, Middlesex U., UK Chris McManus*******, University Coll. London Neil J. Salkind, U. of Kansas Pulmonary Medicine Traian Mihaescu, Iasi, Romania Radiology David Rabin, Highland Park Hosp., IL Science Policy Al Teich, American Assn for the Advancement of Science
(selected at random from amongst our subscribers) Junkan Song, Arnhem, the Netherlands Women's Health Andrea Dunaif, Northwestern U. JoAnn Manson, Brigham & Women's Hosp.
An ornithologist friend of mine sent this note to me, and I, who prefer a peaceful life, pass it on to you: “A few years back I received an anonymous call from a pay phone in downtown Manhattan. A rabbinical student (perhaps 30 years old) was trying to confirm all the ornithological references in the Old Testament, plus some of his notions about the meaning of life and the moment of death. The student first wanted to know if fish were (completely) dead before herons swallowed them. The ghastly truth precipitated a frenzied cascade of follow-up and I’m having a difficult time removing some lint and dust from the intricate crevasses. I’ve tried a tiny vacuum, but the lint’s quite stubborn and the rubber is rather tacky. Thank you in advance.
questions. Every three minutes the operator would prompt the increasingly agitated caller for a handful of quarters. Angry people waiting for the phone were swearing loudly in the background. After 18 minutes he ran out of quarters. A week later to the very minute, I took another blind call....the same guy from the same phone booth. This time he wanted to know (shouting over traffic noise and swearing in the background) why nestling cuckoos were black (perhaps avatars of Satan) and whether or not they made ill-intended flights to heaven. This guy was clearly on holiday from some distant planet, but at least he provided some context. After that call, I told our secretary to screen the calls more thoroughly and to refer blind calls from Manhattan phone booths to the Ornithology Department at the American Museum of Natural History.”
4 | Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2008 | vol. 14, no. 5 www.improbable.com Improbable Research Review Improbable theories, experiments, and conclusions compiled by Dirk Manley, Improbable Research staff reveals collective action barriers to mounting challenges to copyright validity: the song generates an estimated $2 million per year, and yet no one has ever sought adjudication of the validity of its copyright. Obscure, Old, Presumably Once Delicious “First Archaeozoological Evidence for Haimation, the ‘Invisible’ Garum,” Wim Van Neera and S. Thomas Parker,
pp. 1821–7, DOI:10.1016/j.jas.2007.11.021. (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, affiliated variously with the Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and with North Carolina State University, report: The fish remains are described that were found at the bottom of an Early Roman ceramic jar from Aila Aqaba, Jordan. The bones, representing the gill apparatuses of at least 33 medium-sized tunas (Auxis; Scombridae) and a single individual of a lizardfish (Trachinocephalus myops; Synodontidae), are believed to correspond to haimation. This highly prized fish sauce, documented previously only from ancient textual evidence, was typically made from the gills and the entrails of tunnids to which salt was added.
“Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song,” Robert Brauneis, George Washington University Research Paper No. 1111624, 2008. (Thanks to Roz Wilkin for
“Happy Birthday to You” is the best-known and most frequently sung song in the world. Many—including Justice Breyer in his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft—have portrayed it as an unoriginal work that is hardly worthy of copyright protection, but nonetheless remains under copyright. Yet close historical scrutiny reveals both of those assumptions to be false. The song that became “Happy Birthday to You,” originally written with different lyrics as “Good Morning to All,” was the product of intense creative labor, undertaken with copyright protection in mind. However, it is almost certainly no longer under copyright, due to a lack of evidence about who wrote the words; defective copyright notice; and a failure to file a proper renewal application. The falsity of the standard story about the song demonstrates the dangers of relying on anecdotes without thorough research and analysis. It also
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