Improbable Research

Amanda Yarnell writes, at C&Ntral Science:

Best Party Favor Ever
Party favors are best when they are edible, I’ve always thought. So I was disappointed when I sat down to dinner at Bill Lipscomb’s 90th birthday party last night to find a tiny, not-chocolate-coated book next to my plate. Then I took a closer look. The favor was a tiny flip book, put together by Bill’s wife Jean and Marc Abrahams of IgNobel fame, intended as a tutorial on tying The Colonel’s* signature neckwear. The flip book had a limited print run, I hear. But here’s the video from which it came,

The November issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: because he was covered with paint; drug as doggerel; hands off the hand sanitizer; triple Zech poets; plasma blobs competition; pigs v. people: a matter of taste; psycho-vegetative tests for teachers; etc.

Mel [pictured here] says, “It’s swell.”

(mini-AIR is the simplest way to keep informed about Improbable and Ig Nobel news and events. Just fill in the wee form, and mini-AIR will be emailed to you every month)

In December 1750, Franklin learned one lesson the hard way, when he shocked himself while trying to electrocute a holiday turkey. Franklin believed electrocuting the turkey made it uncommonly tender. When he began his electrical experiments in about 1745, Franklin had already retired from his printing business, which was good, because

This is time lapse video of a man’s beard growth during the twelve months he spent walking from Beijing to Germany. (Thanks to avowedly beardless investigator Steve Whillett for bringing this to our attention.)

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Bart Knols, who won the 2006 Ig Nobel biology prize, for ‘for showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet’ recently wrote a book (in Dutch). It is titled ‘Mug’ and tells how mosquito’s have influenced the history of the world and how researchers, including himself, discovered their role in spreading horrible diseases.

The book contains a nice section about his Ig Nobel adventures in 2006, with a remarkable detail: Bart Knols is the only person who can claim to have won both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize. When he worked at the IAEA in 2005, the staff of that institution won the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Knols indeed holds both certificates.