Improbable Research

IgBill, the printed program handed to every ticketholder at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, is now also online as a downloadable PDF. Download it, if you like!

It’s got info about what, more or less, will happen at the ceremony. IgBill even includes the complete libretto to “The Broken Heart Opera“—the new mini-opera that will be part of the ceremony.

We hope you will join us at the 28th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday evening, September 13, 2018, in Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. A few TICKETS are still available. And if you can’t be there in person, gather some friends, wherever you are, and watch the live webcast.

“This article set out to examine the role of stickers in urban semiotic landscapes by focusing on their spatial distribution, agency, and linguistic practices involved in their design and production, function and discursive distribution. The analysis of 1191 signs recorded on Digbeth, a street in central Birmingham, UK, has revealed that stickers form the predominant genre in this corpus (60%).”

The study revealed that the majority of stickers (329) were located on lampposts. [see below]

And also showed (for example) that 22.5% were commercial, and 18.5% were artistic in nature. [see below]

See: ‘Lamppost networks* : stickers as a genre in urban semiotic landscape’ authored by Professor Gertrud K. Reershemius of the School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. It’s scheduled for publication in the journal Social Semiotics

*This term was coined by Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matras as part of their presentation for the conference “Multilingual Landscapes: Planning, Policy, and Contact Linguistic Perspectives”. 21–22 May 2018, University of Manchester. ‘Toward an integrated approach to urban linguistic landscapes’

_{[ Research research by Martin Gardiner ]}

Many are already accustomed to leaving the task of cleaning and drying the dirty dishes to a dishwasher – what if it were possible to do something similar with an infant in need of a diaper* change? A newly issued US patent granted to inventor Iman Farahbakhsh, of Quchan, Iran, explains the concept :

“Changing diapers is an art that many parents or caregivers may find difficult to acquire or perform conveniently.

[…] a need exists for an infant washer and diaper changing apparatus that can reduce or eliminate the inconvenience associated with changing diapers of the infants as well as reducing the water consumed during changing diapers of the infant.

In one implementation, the infant changing and washing apparatus may automatically change the diaper of an infant and wash and dry the infant. The infant changing and washing apparatus may be a light, compact, and easily portable and may be comparable to the commercial washing machines in size and shape. The apparatus may include an outlet bin for the used diaper, or may conveniently be used in connection with a washing apparatus to subsequently wash the diaper. The apparatus further may wash and dry the infant.

The apparatus may be said to be automatic in some implementations, in that once the infant is placed inside the apparatus, various steps may in some cases by carried out automatically without needing the operator to touch the infant or interact manually with the diaper or infant during the changing process, which may create a more sanitary environment for the ambient area and the operator’s hands.”

See United States Patent 10,034,582, July 31, 2018, ‘Infant washer and diaper-changer apparatus and method’

* _{That’s ‘nappy’ for our UK readers}

“A Case of The ‘Heeby Jeebies’: An Examination of Intuitive Judgements of ‘Creepiness’ ”, Margo C. Watt, Rebecca A. Maitland, and Catherine E. Gallagher, Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue Canadienne des Sciences du Comportement, vol. 49, no. 1, January 2017, pp. 58-69. The authors, at St. Francis Xavier University, Dalhousie University, and the University of New Brunswick, Canada, explain:

“The present research examined ‘creepiness,’ a commonly referenced but little understood construct. In Study 1, 185 undergraduates (74% women) provided qualitative data on the defining characteristics of ‘creepiness.’ ‘Creepiness’ was found to reside in the eyes, and was associated with men with ectomorphic-like bodies, with a dishevelled appearance, between 31 and 50 years of age. In Study 2, 48 students (71% women) rated black-and-white photographs of Caucasian male faces on a 7-point Likert-type scale for ‘creepiness,’ trustworthiness, and attractiveness.”

Read that and more, in the column “Soft Is Hard—Further evidence why the “soft” sciences are the hardest to do well” [free, downloadable PDF], in the special NOISE issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

For heaps of improbable research, subscribe to the magazine (or if you like, buy single issues). The magazine has six new issues a year, all in PDF form.

“Another White Christmas: Fantasy Proneness and Reports of ‘Hallucinatory Experiences’ in Undergraduate Students,” Harald Merckelbach and Vincent van de Ven, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, vol. 32, no. 3, September 2001, pp. 137-144. (Thanks to Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, report:

“44 undergraduate students were asked to listen to white noise and instructed to press a button when they believed hearing a recording of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas without this record actually being presented. Fourteen participants (32%) pressed the button at least once…. hallucinatory reports obtained during the White Christmas test [might] reflect a non-specific preference for odd items rather than schizophrenia-like, internal experiences.”

Read that and more, in the column “Music and Noise Research—Explorations of artistic and other vibrations” [free, downloadable PDF], in the special NOISE issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

For heaps of improbable research, subscribe to the magazine (or if you like, buy single issues). The magazine has six new issues a year, all in PDF form.