Improbable Research

Trevor Pinch [pictured here, at right] and Richard Rottenberg [pictured below] sometimes collaborate, says Professor Pinch’s web page, as well as Professor Rottenberg’s. You will note that Wikipedia notes that “Trevor Pinch’s book, Confronting Nature is widely considered the definitive sociological account of the history of the solar neutrino problem, and was mentioned by Raymond Davis in his 2002 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.”

BONUS: Pinch’s study “How Aunt Ammy Gets Her Free Lunch”

“The closer I examine the brain, the less I learn about the mind. Rather, what has been most informative about the mind is how people—neuroscientists and non-neuroscientists alike—interpret neuroscience data. Some cognitive neuroscientists have proposed the qualities we hold most precious as humans, like morality and free will, exist only in the context of human interaction. Likewise, I propose that the mind does not exist in a vacuum and one’s mind only necessitates distinction in a social context, and the mind’s existence may only be relevant due to its relative relationships. In sum, bodies have brains. People have minds.”

So writes Karen Spaceinvaders in the journal continent. 1.2 (2011): 76-77.

K. Spaceinvaders also provides one of the very few, if not the only online resource where you can listen to mp3 deep-brain neuronal recordings. (requires Flash)

Unfortunately, Improbable’s attempts at contacting Dr. Spaceinvaders have failed. But, instead, links to further resources regarding electrophysiological (extracellular recording) approaches to deep brain research can be found here via Dr. Karen Rommelfanger who is now Program Director of Emory University’s Neuroethics Program.

Investigator Ron Josephson alerts us to the existence of Dr. D. Doctor, also known as Daniel H. Doctor, Ph.D.

Dr. Doctor is a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, where he is a Ph.D and a postdoc.

News from the TEDx Göteborg 2012 ‘Beyond Borders’ website:

How can herring farts in the Stockholm archipelago almost lead to a diplomatic crisis? Or a bra be converted into a gas mask in case of emergency? To Magnus Wahlberg this is everyday stuff, and proof that science doesn’t have to be dull to be important. He is a biologist and Scandinavian desk chief of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, and has himself been awarded the Ig Nobel Prize (for those herring farts).

Magnus Wahlberg will tell his Ig Nobel story at TEDx Göteborg 2012, Sweden, on Wednesday October 10th, 2012, at Lorensbergsteatern (in Gothenburg). Try to be there! Apply here for a ticket.

The duck guy has a new book — about the butt crack of the tick.

After witnessing ‘the first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard (duck)‘ and winning an Ig Nobel Prize for his publication documenting that remarkable behavior, Kees Moeliker developed a keen eye for animal oddities. He published most of his subsequent observations, findings and thought in his (bi)weekly column ‘Beest’ [beast] in the leading Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

This week marks the launch of his new book, De bilnaad van de teek [The butt crack of the tick], that bundles 115 columns.

In addition to a short, yet revealing look into tick anatomy (and new observations thereof), the book also presents Moelikerian classics such as ‘The strange case of the decapitated canary’ and the (first ever) mouse collected from the Dutch parliament. The parliamentary rodent now lives, in death, in  the collection of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, of which Kees Moeliker is the curator.

For now, the book exists only in the Dutch language. We shall all see whether and how and how soon The Butt Crack of the Tick translates into other languages.