CLASSICAL GAS --
SCIENTIFIC GOSSIP
Contains 100% gossip from concentrate
Hair Growth Breakthrough
A new hair growth medicine is showing great promise. Minixidahl, a topical preparation that is derived from orange juice, has caused lush, copious hair growth on more than ninety percent of human subjects.
While the treatment is remarkably effective, it has one major drawback. On most test subjects, the hair growth is limited to the outside of the nose. Some subjects also showed increased growth of internal nose hair.
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Hot Side Hot, Cold Side Cold
A new power plant will marry the benefits of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. In a novel design twist, the structure was inspired by a hamburger container.
The facility is known as a "hot side hot / cold side cold" (HSH/CSC) power plant. It exploits a vortex interaction that develops when nuclear fission occurs in close proximity to nuclear cold fusion.
The (HSH/CSC) power station is being build outside Toulouse, France. The containment facility was modeled after a now obsolete McDonald's hamburger package. The original fast food packaging was intended to regulate the temperature levels of a hamburger (the hot side) and a topping (the cold side) composed of lettuce, tomato and condiments. A McDonald's ad of the 1980's explained that this kept the "hot side hot" and the "cold side cold."
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Universe May Be 2-Dimensional
The universe may be two-dimensional, according to a report that will be posted soon on the physics preprint server.
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Nuke vs. Nuke
There is a new battleground in the intense competition for energy research funding. Proponents of the nucular energy camp are breaking away from their former colleagues, the nuclear energy researchers.
The nucular / nuclear split is the latest sign of disharmony in a field that was once bound very tightly. Now the nucular groups will be competing against the research groups devoted to nuclear fission, nuclear cold fusion, and traditional nuclear hot fusion.
Observers wryly point out a parallel to this kleidoscopically complicating realignment in the realm of research politics: the changing views over the last forty years about the existence and classification of subatomic particles in nature.
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Of One Mind
The mind/body problem has long perplexed philosophers. It has now been solved.
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Sidewalk Strut
Why do old ladies always walk in the middle of the sidewalk? That question has fascinated Patricia O'Leary-Savage since she was a 26-year old graduate student. O'Leary-Savage, who is now chairman of the psychology department at Kansas Normal University, has been doing research on the question since 1964. She has reached some tentative conclusions.
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Exciting Phone Calls
Many people are unaware that the word "LASER" originally was an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation." Now science and business are teaming up to take advantage of the stimulation that occurs when lasers are used to transmit telephone calls.
Certain light frequencies have long been known to be "stimulating" or "exciting" when viewed by human beings. The psychedelic poster painters of the 1960s made great use of these colors. Researchers at MCI/Bell/KDD/British Telecom Consolidated Laboratories recently discovered that these light frequencies can also impart excitement to any signal that later will be converted to audio form.
When the next generation of erbium laser optical transoceanic communications cables are laid across the Atlantic (by next year) and the Pacific (by the year after), telephone users should notice an added dash of excitement every time they make an overseas call.
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Car Talk
It will soon be possible for a motorist to telephone the driver of another automobile by "dialing" that car's license plate number.
The new "super-cellular" technology will become available in California later this year.
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Pickled Socks
A new study indicates that pickled socks may not be a cancer-causing agent after all. The study, conducted with more than 3500 male patients over a period of twelve years, appears to contradict earlier findings.
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Big For Its Size
The neutrino may be far, far more massive than anyone had anticipated.
Particle physicists have never gotten a firm grip on the neutrino. Because the ghostly subatomic particle is difficult to observe, no one has been able to measure its mass, and theorists have given conflicting predictions.
New experimental data, obtained independently at five laboratories, hints that a previously unpredicted type of neutrino may have a mass that is 1.7 times the mass of the sun. If this result is borne out by subsequent measurements, it could have subtle implications for other aspects of physics.
© Copyright 2002 Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
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