Improbable Research

Tobias Maile has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). He says:

I have a German PhD in Molecular Biology, which I did in cooperation of  University of Hohenheim and the UC Riverside in California. I moved to London for my Postdoc in 2007 where I work in cancer research for CRUK in their London Research Institute (LRI). I am working mostly biochemically with the fruit fly Drosphila melanogaster where I investigate the regulation of certain growth inducing transcription factors which are closely conserved in mammals as well. About 500 scientists or so work in the LRI and with no more than a handful of long-haired male scientists, we are certainly an endangered species within the institute.

Tobias Maile, Ph.D., LFHCfS
Postdoctoral Scientist
London Research Institute
Cancer Research UK
London, UK

The uneaten remains of edible things are sometimes hauled off to be rendered.

In 1984, C.J. Fenton of Alfa-Laval Pty., Ltd, in Lidcombe, NSW, Australia, wrote a report about rendering some of this uneaten edible stuff so that it becomes, again, edible. Fenton’s report [an image from which you see partially rendered here, at the right] begins:

EDIBLE RENDERING

Before describing the processes used for edible rendering, I felt it could be of some advantage to look at the term “Edible Rendering” with the implications and limitations these might impose….

Uranus is the most giggle-producing planet for English speakers, because of its name. Uranus was almost named George. In this video, a gaggle of scientists at the University of Nottingham discuss that and many other facts about the science and naming of the planet. (Thanks to Christine Ashe for bringing it to our attention.) NOTE: The planet plays a small but significant part in the song “The Big Bank Theory“.

As Germany and England prepare to meet in the World Cup tournament, The Independent newspaper [in London] totes up their comparative history in other competitions:

Three Miss Worlds and one (rugby) World Cup

We’ve all heard the song. But there’s more to life than football and fighting. So how do England and Germany measure up at the Nobels? The Oscars? Crufts? Kevin Rawlinson keeps score…

Newton and Einstein’s respective countries of birth have contributed their fair share to the sum of human knowledge. To date, Britain is ahead – by the measure of Nobel laureates – with 117 to Germany’s 103.

Einstein received his award for services to theoretical physics. Harold Pinter, who died in 2008, recorded his lecture address while in hospital after winning the award for literature.

England has 17 Ig Nobel awards (for “improbable research”) to Germany’s two. English recipients were honoured for calculating “the optimal way to dunk a biscuit” and for working out how to make a teapot spout that doesn’t drip.

The New Delhi Pioneer reports about a new initiative by Ig Nobel Prize winner Lal Bihari:

Upper Pradesh’s ‘dead’ await justice, resurrection on June 30

In their quest to tell the world that they are still alive, hundreds of ‘dead’ drawn from all over the State would assemble in Azamgarh to observe their ‘Punarjanam Diwas’ or the ‘day of rebirth’ on June 30. The function would be organised by the Mritak Sangh (Organisation of Dead) in which around 500 persons are expected to take part. “These are the people who are dead as per the Government records. But in reality, they are alive. The celebration of ‘Punarjanam Diwas’ is another attempt to tell the world that they are still alive,” Lal Bihari, the president of the Mritak Sangh, said from Azamgarh, 300 km south-east of Lucknow….

In 2003, Lal Bihari was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People.