Improbable Research

We spotted this curious symbol on a wall inside an Air Canada Jazz jet that flew from Boston to Halifax. The leading conjecture is that maybe it depicts some sort of hazmat suit. But that is only a conjecture. If you know for sure what it is, we would love to hear (lease leave a comment) your story; and to see some documentation.

UPDATE: Investigator Richard Rae says: “It shows the location of a smoke escape hood for emergency egress from the plane. Attendants will usually use them.” Documentation of that?

Newly announced American research on panda feces seems to echo the research (this and this) that garnered the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in biology for Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guangle [see photo below of Prof. Taguchi accepting the Ig Nobel Prize; photo by Alexey Eliseev]. The news reports we’ve seen don’t say whether the new group is aware of the earlier research.

Alex Witze reports on the new findings, for Science News:

Pooping pandas may make better biofuels

Two giant pandas in the Memphis Zoo have dropped researchers a gift. Studies of the pandas’ poop show that their gut microbes break down bamboo efficiently — a trick that humans could co-opt to turn woody plant material into alternative energy sources. “We’re taking refuse — panda poop and the microbes that live there — and trying to break down another form of refuse,” says Ashli Brown, a biochemist at Mississippi State University. Brown described her team’s results on August 29 at a meeting in Denver of the American Chemical Society.

(Thanks to investigator Laura Bassett for bringing this to our attention.)

Mike the Mad Biologist writes, in his blog:

During the last week, I’ve come across a couple sensationalist article about E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus being found on common surfaces. Here’s one article about shopping carts and E. coli… And here’s an article about Staphylococcus aureus (those S. aureus resistant to methicillin–and often other antibiotics–are known as MRSA)…

MRSA is a problem in the clinical setting, and its increase in the healthy population is worrisome, since healthy people can serve as a reservoir of resistant organisms and resistance genes. Likewise, you don’t want to have an E. coli bloodstream infection. But both S. aureus and E. coli are commensal organisms: they live on and in us, and typically don’t cause disease–usually, only when they wind up where they don’t belong. If you come into contact with them–the aforementioned wiping your ass–you’ll be fine unless you’re severely immunocompromised or have an open wound.

This is scaremongering.

JUST WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS!

Sword swallower Dan Meyer tells how he overcame his childhood fears and won an Ig Nobel Prize, etc. Here’s video of his motivational talk at Ignite Great Lakes:

BONUS: If you come to the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, or watch the live webcast, on September 29, you will meet Mr. Meyer, in person or televisually.

Can this truly be the entire story behing Professor Danford W. Middlemiss‘s decision to end his academic career? CBC News reports:

Dalhousie prof quits over parking

A professor at Dalhousie University says a severe shortage of parking spaces at the Halifax school has forced him to quit.

Dan Middlemiss [pictured here] and hundreds of other Dalhousie staff and students lined up Monday to buy the first available parking passes. After waiting for more than an hour, he decided instead to leave his profession of 31 years. ”For a guy like myself that lives in Lower Sackville, I have to get on the road around 6:30 to 7 to get an assured parking spot somewhere so I can get here to teach at 2:30 in the afternoon,” said Middlemiss, an expert on Canadian defence policy.

“It’s ridiculous, in my view, and the university just keeps pretending that it’s not the problem that it is.” Middlemiss said parking has always been a problem at Dalhousie. But this time, he simply had enough….

(via @TweedFeed)