Improbable Research

Olivia Guest has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. She says:

I’m a 21-year-old female scientist, I have just finished my BSc in Computer Science at The University of York, UK. I am currently enjoying the summer holidays before continuing with a MSc at UCL in London (Cognitive and Decision Sciences MSc). My main academic interests involve anything related to brains. I have had various forms of luxuriant (I hope) hair, ranging in colour from red to purple to blonde to blue-black to brown and back to red, at varying lengths. PS: Is there an official Facebook group for the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists? If not, there should be!

Olivia Guest, LFHCfS
Graduate student, Cognitive and Decision Sciences
University College London
London, UK

The May/June 2009 issue (vol. 15, no. 3) of the magazine (the Annals of Improbable Research) just went out. It’s a special Accounting issue, with reports about: the Blood, Fingers, and Genes of Fabulous Financial Traders; Great Adventures in Accounting; the Public Erection of G.S. Brindley;  the curious case of the boyfriend and the replacement cat; and much more. Click on the magazine cover (below) to:

• Download a free low-res PDF version (cheesiest!), or
• Buy a hi-res PDF version (digitally spiffiest!), or
• Subscribe to the paper version (nicest!)

Mel (right) says it’s swell.

On June 21, 2009 a member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, who joined in 2006, wrote saying:

[all details removed by request of the member in respect of the member's partner's sensibilities]

The LFHCfS does and will miss this now-former member’s membership.

Here’s the new episode — #118, “Yummy Mummies” — of the Improbable Research TV series. Powdered mummy, preferably Egyptian, may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for many years it was just what the doctor ordered.

To see this episode, click on the image at right, and you will be whisked to YouTube (where you can subscribe, if you like, to the Improbable Research channel).

These are three-minute videos about research that makes people laugh, then makes them think.

For links about each episode’s content, and an FAQ, see the Improbable TV page.

Today’s Literary-Mechanico “Life in Review” item:

“À la Recherche des Années Perdues, or, My Life is More Interesting than Formerly Thought,” J.D. Goddard, Acta Mechanica, vol. 205, nos. 1-4, June 2009, pp. 3-8. DOI: 10.1007/s00707-009-0159-2. The author is a Professor of Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences at the University of California, San Diego,

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