Improbable Research

The winner of this month’s Bizzarro Science Photo Hunt competition is Esmerelda Rios, who writes:

This is my favorite Bizzarro science photo. It shoes Joe Bizzarro, Staff Scientist & Project Manager of the Pacific Shark Research Center – Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, which among other things is part of the National Shark Research Consortium. Joe’s research interests are feeding ecology, fisheries ecology, and habitat associations.

I was present in the building, though not at the event itself, on September 27, 2005 when Joe defended his thesis. It was, need I point out, a Bizzarro day!

A new movie builds on the story of 2003 Ig Nobel Peace Prize winner Lal Bihari, founder and and president of the Association of Dead People. Reviewer Utpal Borpujari explains (on the web site Dear Cinema):

In eastern Uttar Pradesh, there is a Mritak Sangh – the Association of the Dead – founded by Lal Bihari Mritak. And it is no joke. Lal Bihari, born in 1961 in Azamgarh district, went to apply for a bank loan in 1976, only to find that he had been officially declared “dead”. From 1976 to 1994, he continued to be “dead”, before he could win back his right to be “alive” again after fighting a long legal battle.

Lal Bihari’s plight – the result of an avaricious uncle who wanted to usurp the family property (the uncle had bribed the officials to tweak the records and get him declared dead) – was not his alone, as he found out during his struggle to reverse the official records. So, he formed the Mritak Sangh in Azamgarh, reportedly with a membership of over 20,000 members from all over India.

During his struggle, Lal Bihari did everything possible to draw the attention of the powers that be – he held his own funeral, demanded widow’s compensation for his wife, and even fought elections against Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 just to prove that he was alive. Now Lal Bihari, who won the Ig Nobel Award in 2003 for his “posthumous” activities, has officially appended the title Mritak to his name to highlight his plight which luckily for him ended. Director-actor Satish Kaushik had even declared some years ago that he would make a film on Lal Bihari, the role to be essayed by Anil Kapoor. Though Kaushik had made the announcement in Delhi in the presence of Lal Bihari at a press conference at a five star hotel, nobody knows what happened to that project.

But Raja Menon has picked up this very interesting premise to set up his film Barah Aana, with Mishra-ji (Naseeruddin Shah) playing the “dead” man.

More info, and trailers, can be had at the movie’s web site.

The answer is (c).

The question was:

Which of the people in this photo is Joe Bizzarro, author of the study “A Review of the Physical and Biological Characteristics of the Bahía Magdalena Lagoon Complex (Baja California Sur, Mexico)“?

a) the beardless man holding the dark fish

b) the light-bearded man holding the brown fish

c) the dark-bearded man standing behind and between the beardless man holding the dark fish and the blonde woman holding the curved fish

d) the blonde woman holding the curved fish

(Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing the study to our attention.)

Reuters Television filmed an interview with 2007 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize co-winner Dan Meyer at Imperial College London as he was preparing for the Ig Nobel UK Tour show there last week (the video also includes brief glimpses of the show itself):

Talk about a dangerous job – a professional sword swallower has co-authored a scientific research paper on the side effects of the ancient art. Dan Meyer, president of the Sword Swallowers Association International (SSAI), demonstrated the art of sword swallowing at Imperial Collage, London.

Reuters describes the institution as being a collage. It is also, officially, a college.

Obscurantism in science has often be come a goal in itself. But it is not enough to confuse the reader; one has to know what it is that one intends to confuse the reader about.

So begins Alexander Kohn’s classic essay “Principles and Methods of Obscurantism,” CA Cancer J Clin, 1970;20;360-364. DOI: 10.3322/canjclin.20.6.360.

Alex Kohn was the co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research and of our forerunner journal — and of the Ig Nobel Prizes.  We and his many other fans and admirers miss him.