Improbable Research

There’s a new breakthrough in the attempt to appreciate whining:

“Whines, cries, and motherese: Their relative power to distract,” Rosemarie Sokol Chang and Nicholas S. Thompson, Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2011, 5(2), 131-141. The authors, at SUNY New Paltz and Clark University, explain:

“Distraction was measured in terms of number of subtraction problems completed, errors made, and a proportion score of errors to problems completed, for each condition…. In absolute numbers, participants were most distracted by whines, followed by infant cries and motherese.”

Investigator G.J. Reynolds writes:

Here’s a nice little set of papers on how the color of a cat affects its owners allergies.

First, a 2000 abstract in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunologyestablishing that owners of lighter-colored cats have fewer symptoms than owners of darker-colored cats [one of the authors, Clifford Bassett, is pictured here in lieu of a cat]. And then, a 2001 paper in the same journal establishing that levels of cat allergen are in fact the same, regardless of cat color.

I would note that the conclusion drawn by the first article is a nice case of assuming causation when you only have correlation. The cats in question were not randomly assigned to owners, so it could be that people with severe allergies are drawn to darker-colored cats, or that people without allergies are more likely to choose light-colored cats.

BONUS: A 2010 NY Times look at the same question.

Today’s Troll Comment of the Day is:

L.E. Troll, “Comments on ‘Corpses, Lepers, and Menstruating Women‘”, Feminism & Psychology, vol. 5, no. 4, November 1995, pp. 468-472, doi:10.1177/0959353595054005.

For many philosophers, the scholarly debate around holes began in earnest in 1970, with Lewis and Lewis’s now classic article ‘Holes’ (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 48: 206–212.) The authors presented their paper in a highly unusual format – that of an imaginary discussion between two philosophers, called Argle and Bargle, who are pondering the holes in a piece of Gruyère cheese. Argle believes that every hole has a hole-lining, and therefore the hole-lining is the hole. On the other hand, Bargle points out that even if hole-linings surround holes, things don’t surround themselves. Since the 70’s the philosophical debate around holes has continued and expanded considerably, and has now been complemented with an article by Kristopher McDaniel assistant professor in the department of philosophy at Syracuse University, NY. The professor outlines the possibilities for a new and more comprehensive category of entities which includes holes, and which he calls ‘Almost Nothings’.

“Examples of almost nothings include holes, cracks, and shadows; almost nothings thrive in the absence of ‘positive’ entities such as donuts, walls, and sunlight.”

And to remind readers of the enigmatic nature of holes, the professor give the following illustrated example.

Jason Webley explains why and how he wrote the song “Bacteria” during the tech rehearsal for last year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. He and Amanda Palmer, who when conjoined form the supergroup Evelyn Evelyn, premiered the song as part of the 201o Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

This video was taken at Jason’s recent solo show in Toronto:

BONUS: See video of the original performance of the song and the entire 2010 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony: