Journal of Improbable Research

Mel says, “This is swell! But it’s not ideal—it’s a free, grainy PDF.”

Attain your ideals!

Purchase a nicer, printable PDF of this issue.

Or nicest of all, subscribe to the paper version of the Annals of Improbable Research (six issues per year, delivered to your doorstep!).

To purchase pretty PDFs, or to subscribe to splendid paper, go to http://www.improbable.com/magazine/

http://www.improbable.com/magazine/

march | april 2011 (volume 17, number 2) $7.50 us | $10.50 can

Head on Brain in Brain, Is the Brain Necessary?

Tempermental Heads…

HEAD & BRAIN

Special Issue

0 274470 88921

03>

2 | Annals of Improbable Research | March–April 2011 | vol. 17, no. 2 www.improbable.com

AIR, P.O. Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238, USA “Improbable Research” and “Ig” and the tumbled thinker logo are all reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.

617-491-4437 FAX: 617-661-0927 www.improbable.com [email protected] EDITORIAL: [email protected]

Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK

Co-foundersMarc AbrahamsAlexander Kohn

EditorMarc Abrahams [email protected]

Bureaus and DesksKees Moeliker, European Bureau ChiefSteve Farrar, Edinburgh Desk Chief Dariusz Jemielniak, Warsaw Desk Chief Magnus Wahlberg, Scandinavian Desk ChiefMartin Gardiner, Rio de Janeiro Desk ChiefSid Rodrigues, London OrganiserErwin J.O. KompanjeWillem O. de Jongste

Commutative EditorStanley Eigen, Northeastern U.

Associative EditorMark Dionne

Dissociative EditorRose Fox

VP, Human Resources, and Psychology EditorRobin Abrahams

“When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable,

must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”—Richard Feynman

Annals of Improbable Research

Contributing EditorsOtto Didact, Stephen Drew, Ernest Ersatz, Emil Filterbag, Karen Hopkin, Alice Kaswell, Nick Kim, Katherine Lee, Bissel Mango, Randall Monroe, Steve Nadis, Nan Swift, Marina Tsipis, Bertha Vanatian

Research ResearchersKristine Danowski, Tom Gill, Mary Kroner, Wendy Mattson, Tom Roberts

Improbable Facilitator Circulation DirectorKatherine Meusey [email protected]

Ig Nobel FacilitatorLisa Birk [email protected]

Design and ArtGeri Sullivan, PROmote CommunicationsLois Malone, Rich & Famous Graphics

Art Director emeritaPeaco Todd

© 2011 Annals of Improbable Research ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 online

WEB TEAMEditorMarc Abrahams

Webmaster Julia Lunetta

Technical Eminence Grise Dave Feldman, InterfaceThis

General FactotumJesse Eppers

Webmaster emerita Amy Gorin

Webmaster in absentiaMira Wilczek

KIM CARTOON by Nick Kim: “Orchestra”

http://www.improbable.com

Annals of Improbable Research | March–April 2011 | vol. 17, no. 2 | 1 www.improbable.com

ContentsThe features marked with a star (*) are based entirely on material taken straight from standard research (and other Official and Therefore Always Correct) literature. Many of the other articles are genuine, too, but we don’t know which ones.

Special Section: Head and Brain 6 Head on Brain in Brain* — Marc Abrahams

9 Brain Damage May Be an Advantage for Gamblers* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell

10 The Psychoanalyst Says Your Gut Says* — Marc Abrahams

12 Plucked From Obscurity: An Immortality Pump for the Head* — Marina Tsipis

14 Temperamental Heads* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell

Improbable Research Reviews* 4 Improbable Research Review* — Dirk Manley

5 Improbable Medical Review* — Bertha Vanatian

16 May We Recommend: Chewing and the Alphabet* — Stephen Drew

18 Icky Cutesy Research Review* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell

20 Soft Is Hard* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell and Bissell Mango

24 Boys Will Be Boys* — Katherine Lee

26 Ig® and Beyond* — Nan Swift

News & NotesIFC KIM CARTOON: “Orchestra” — Nick Kim

2 AIR Vents (letters from our readers)

3 AIR Books

11 Editorial Board

13 Teachers’ Guide

17 Back Issues

19 2011 Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony

22 Puzzling Solutions — Emil Filterbag

23 Ig® Nobel Limericks: Slime, Nation, Beer* — Martin Eiger

27 XKCD: “Time Travel” — Randall Munroe

IBC UnclassifiedAds

On the Front CoverHeads and brains. See articles on pages 12 and 14.

On the Back CoverSome temperaments, as displayed in an 1888.q See page 14.

April 2011 Edinburgh Science Festival

May 2011 New York City

May 2011 Cambridge (MA) Science Festival

May 2011 NIH, Warrenton, VA

June 2011 Doha, Qatar

September 2011 Geneva, Switzerland

September 29, 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

October 1, 2011 Ig Informal Lectures

November 2011 Ig Nobel Scandinavia Tour

Coming Events

See WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM for details of these and other events.

Every Day Read something new and improbable every day on the Improbable Research blog, on our web site: WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM

http://www.improbable.com/


AIR VentsExhalations from our readers

NOTE: The opinions expressed here represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of those who hold other opinions.

Notice to Subscribers, Whoever You May Find Yourself to BeIf you are a subscriber to this magazine you may have discovered that you are, or at least were for a brief period, a different person than you used to be.

When the issue (17:1) prior to this one was mailed, our subscriberdatabasefileassigned a few of you some newfirstname.Thiswasanaccident. We did not intend togiveyouadifferentfirstname, and having given you thatnewfirstnamewehaveendeavored to take it back.

We apologize for taking awaythisnewfirstname,but even more we apologize for having given you the differentfirstnameinthefirst(orsecond?)place.Now that we (hope we) have taken the name back and given you back your originalfirstname,wewillconsider whether to give the new name to yet another subscriber, perhaps someone who had always yearned to be called something other than the “Harold” or “Weilun” or “Lee” or “Gustav” or “Alicia” that their parents had presumptuously given them long ago as a birthday gift.

High-Powered Seats on British TrainsI was in Britain to see a show on this year’s Ig Nobel Tour of the UK. On a Virgin (that is the name of one of the British train companies) train I went to the toilet compartment, but was taken up short by this notice, which I then photographed, that was posted on the wall above the toilet itself. Why do the British attachmagnetstotheirtoiletseats?

Is this a follow-on to the Ig Nobel Prize winning work of Andre Geim and Michael Berry, in which those two physics professors usedmagnetstolevitateafrog?DoBritishtrains now, either automatically or as an option,levitatepassengerswhousethetoilet?

I have heard Britons talk of something called “hovering over the toilet seat,” but I never knew what they were talking about. Faced with the reality of this sign, I am sorry to say that I became frightened, and did not dare use the train toilet. I held myself in suspense until I reached my destination (Edinburgh, Scotland, from where I later went to the Ig Nobel show in Dundee), at which point I debarked the trainanddidmybusinessonterrafirma,sotospeak, and without electromagnetic aids.

Martha BuhlerHamburg, Germany

Fruit Bat QuestionI read with great interest the letter by Drs. Linda Lombardi and Silver Spring (AIR Vents 17:1), but was wondering where they are located. The letter ran under the headline “Fruit bats are not so singular.” It was signed by:

Linda Lombardi, PhD Silver Spring, MD

Al PadillaGreenwich, Connecticut, USA

A Little About MelSometime before I retire (summer ’11), or in the alternative sometime before I die (years hence I hope), I would like it acknowledged that there is precious little evidence, if any, that Mel was or is “little.” I continue to be astonished, having previously pointed out my initial astonishment

in these pages, by the apparent and ongoing* confusion between the size of Mel, and the size of Mel’s picture. While his picture is indeed often depicted as small, so are the pictures of all humans shown in the magazine. Indeed none would be more than a few inches tall—which must make the live events such as the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony quite astonishing. On the other hand if things are assumed to be printed life size (as Mel is apparently) then the Orthohalarachene attenuata pictured on page 5 in 17:1 is indeed a formidable beast and it is no wonder that the person in whose eye it resided was alarmed.

* e.g., Dr. Vreeland Heiss’s letter in 17:1 in which he writes “…the little man who always appears in your pages.”

William A. HymanProfessor, Department of Biomedical Engineering

Texas A&M UniversityCollege Station, Texas, USA



Get them in bookstores— or online via

www.improbable.com or at other fine and even not-so-fine e-bookstores.

&Ig® NobelImprobable

Research BOOKS

Don’t Look at BookshelvesYouseethisphotograph?Isnappeditwhilevisiting the Wellcome Library in London. This is the kind of thing they (The Wellcome Library people) have on their bookshelves. It scared the hell out of me. After I got home I looked it up, and found that it’s a book by someone named Robin Evans about prison architecture in the 18th and 19th centuries, and so I went looking for information about 18th and 19th century prisons, and found that they are related to lazarettos, of which I knew nothing (not that I knew much about 18th and 19th century prisons, which is why I had to start reading about them, before I ran across the lazarettos), so then I had tofindoutwhatlazarettoswere,andsothenI found and read about lazarettos in a book called “The Principle Lazarettos of Europe,” by someone named John Howard. And that led me to… Well, you can see how this softening of the mind process works. Stay away from libraries or it will happen to you. Stay away from the Wellcome Library in particular.

Dr. K.S. WallerNixa, Missouri, USA

Charlemagne and DieterOnce my mother dreamt that she was a daughter of the emperor Charlemagne (768 to 814 C.E.). At least a distant familial relation is possible, for she was born in Mönchengladbach in the lower Rhine district. The town served as overnight accommodation during 30 years when Charlemagne travelled from his seat in Aachen to his palace in Paderborn/Westphalia for war against the Saxons. The father of my father belonged to the native population of the latter region. Charlemagne has been described as vivacious and receptive to femalebeauty.Eighteenchildrenfromfivewivesandfiveconcubinesaredocumented. Surely he fathered more with attractive lower class girls.

I have estimated Charlemagne’s minimal contribution to the genes of the population in Mönchengladbach and Paderborn assuming that only two of his children remained there and all following generations had 2 surviving children. With 4 generations per century, 248 (281 trillion) Karolingians should live in these towns after 1200 years. This is not the case because of inbreeding among Charlemagne’s descendants. Without inbreeding the 3 billion base pairs within Charlemagne’s chromosomes should be diluted to only 10-5. Because of inbreeding this value has to be multiplied with the

ratio of hypothetical to really existing descendants in and near both towns (281 trillion/0.5 million = 560,200). There result 6000 base pairs. Each additional child of the emperor adds 3000 base pairs. This is only an average. There should be Karolingian clusters around sites of intense imperial sexual activity. Possibly my mother, as descendant of a native pub owner family, belonged to a group with much more Karolingianheritage.InfutureascientificbreakthroughcouldresultfromanalysisofCharlemagne’sgenome. Samples are obtainable from his corpse buried in the Aachen cathedral. By comparing his Y chromosome (which is inherited by all his male descendants) with those of men from this region and other parts of his empire (e.g. western Germany, France, northern Italy), an exact analysis of Charlemagne’s sexual activity would be possible. And I would become sure about a Karolingian descendence of my grandfather from Paderborn.

As you can see by comparing this medieval drawing of Charlemagne and the photograph of me, the phenotypical similarity between subjects of both families is astonishing.

Prof. Dr. D. Böning Sportmedizin, Institut für Physiologie

Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin FranklinBerlin, Germany



Improbable Research ReviewImprobable theories, experiments, and conclusionscompiled by Dirk Manley, Improbable Research staff

Half-Empty vs. Half-Full Glasses: Finger Coordination With“Prehension of Half-Full and Half-Empty Glasses: Time and History Effects on Multi-Digit Coordination” Yao Sun, Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, and Mark L. Latash, Experimental Brain Research, vol. 209, 2011, pp. 571–85. (Thanks to Slobodan Jaric for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Penn State University, explain:

We explored how digit forces and indices of digit coordination depend on the history of getting to a particular set of task parameters during static prehension tasks…. At the end of each trial, the participantsalwaysheldahalf-filledcontainerthathasjustbeenfilled(Empty-Half),emptied(Full-Half)orstayedhalf-filledthroughoutthetrial(Half-Only)….Significantdifferencesinsynergyindicesacrossconditionswereseenatthefinalsteady state showing that digit coordination during steady holding of an object is history dependent.

The Moss from the Tyrolean Iceman’s Colon“The Moss from the Tyrolean Iceman’s Colon,” James H. Dickson, Journal of Bryology, vol. 19, no. 3, 1997, pp. 449–51. (Thanks to Brian R. Speer for bringing this to our attention.) The author is at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

Detail from the study “Prehension of Half-Full and Half-Empty Glasses…”

>

Dunno in Britain, Dunno in New Zealand“A Corpus Comparison of the Use of I Don’t Know by British and New Zealand Speakers,” Lynn E. Grant, Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 42, 2010, pp. 2282–96. The author, at the Auckland University of Technology, explains:

Further research could addtothesefindingsby looking at all the meanings the phrases have in conversation, their use in academic discourse, as well as use of the single variant, “Dunno.”



We welcome your suggestions for this and other columns. Please enclose the full citation (no abbreviations!) and, if possible, a copy of the paper.

Improbable Medical ReviewImprobable diagnoses, techniques, and researchcompiled by Bertha Vanatian, Improbable Research staff

A Too-Mobile Phone Card“Accidental Mobile Phone Card Ingestion,” Sudesh Dixit, Jayanand Mekwan, and Nigel F. Brayley, Emergency Medicine Journal, vol. 24, 2007, p. 142. (Thanks to Len Finegold for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, who are at Colchester General Hospital, Colchester, Essex, U.K., reports that:

A 14-year-old boy attended the emergency department at 21:24 h, saying that he had swallowed part of his phone 2 hours ago. He had taken the SIM card out and placed it between his teeth. Unfortunately, he managed to swallow it.

Ups and Downs: Stock Market and Ingested Coins“Ingested Foreign Bodies and Societal Wealth: Three-Year Observational Study of Swallowed Coins,” P.G. Firth, H. Zheng, and J.A. Biller, BMJ, vol. 341, 2010. The authors, at Massachusetts General Hospital, report:

Objective: To examine the relation between coins ingested by children and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Conclusion: There was no detectable difference in the total value of coins ingested, or ratio of coins to other objects swallowed, before or after a massive stock market crash.

Eyebrows As They Once Were“Reversing Brow Lifts,” M.J. Yaremchuk, N. O’Sullivan, and F. Benslimane, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, vol. 27, no. 4, July–August 2007, pp. 367–75. The authors, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, report:

Undesirable brow shape and position may occur after brow lift surgery…. We report on a procedure to restore or improve presurgical brow shape and position.

RESULTS: Twenty-two women (average age 45 years; range 32 to 62 years) presented for correction of their brow position and shape after brow lift surgery. All brows were lowered, and the brow apex was shifted laterally…. The repositioning has remained stable over 6 months to 3 years’ follow-up.

Detail from Firth et al.’s study about the relationship between the economy and the ingestion of coins.



Nowadays not many people read Brain on Head in Brain. That could change, because this yearisthefiftiethanniversary of the publication of Russell Brain’s mostly-admiring six-page essay called “Henry Head: A Man and His Ideas,” which celebrated the 100th anniversary of Dr. Head’s birth. Which means that this year

we are all of us entitled to celebrate the 150th anniversary of that happy event. Dr. Brain—who was also Lord Brain, Baron Brain of Eynsham—was editor of the journal Brain. It would have been surprising had he not written that essay about Dr. Head. That’s because Head preceded Brain (the man) as head (which is to say, editor) of the journal (the name of which, I repeat for clarity, is Brain). Head headed Brain from 1905 to 1923. Brain became head in1954,dyinginofficein1967.Noothereditorsinthejournal’s long history (it was founded in 1879) could or did boast surnames that so stunningly announced their obsession, profession, and place of employ. One of Dr. Brain’sfinalarticles,in1963,iscalled“SomeReflections on Brain and Mind.”

“SomeReflectionsonBrainandMind,”LordBrain,Brain, vol. 86, no. 3, 1963, pp. 381-402.

Head on Brain in Brainby Marc Abrahams, Improbable Research staff

Dr. Head wrote many monographs, some quite lengthy, for Brain.Thefirst,a135-pagebehemoth,appearedin1893,long before he became editor. In it, Dr. Head gives special thanks to a Dr. Buzzard, citing Dr. Buzzard’s generosity, the natureofwhichisnotspecified.Reading Dr. Brain’s Brain tribute and other material about Dr. Head, one gets the strong impression that Head had a big head, and that it was stuffed full of knowledge, which Dr. Head was not shy about sharing. Brain writes that “Some men… feel impelled to impart information to others. Head was one of those.”Brain then quotes Professor H.M. Turnbull as saying:

Ihadthegoodfortunewhenfirstgoingtothehospitalto meet daily in the mornings, on the steam engine underground railway, Dr. Henry Head. He… kindly taught me throughout our journeys about physical signs, much to the annoyance of our fellow travellers; indeed in his characteristic keenness he spoke so loudly that as we walked to the hospital from St. Mary’s station people on the other side of the wide Whitechapel Road would turn to look at us.

Brain says that Head “would illustrate his lectures by himself reproducing the involuntary movements or postures produced by nervous disease, and ‘Henry Head doing gaits’ was a perennial attraction.”In 1904, at the age of 42, Head married a headmistress: Ruth Mayhew of Brighton High School for Girls. Brain assures us thatshewas“afitcompanionforhiminintelligence.”Brain, though respectful of Head, suggests that his predecessor may have been over-brainy: “He had many ideas: he bubbled over with them, and perhaps he was sometimes too ready to convince himself of their truth”.

Henry Head, in a photograph taken in 1914 or in some other year, the documentation being unclear.

Brain’s first article in Brain concerned a cracked-pot percussion note.



continued >

Head’s Heady Experiment, in (of course) BrainHead’s most nervy experiment involved (although not exclusively) his penis, about which he presented a surprising amount of detail, in a lengthy monograph in Brain, helping to enliven a new century.

“A Human Experiment in Nerve Division,” W.H.R. Rivers and Henry Head, Brain, vol. 31, no. 3, 1908, pp. 323–450.

The account is too lengthy to reproduce here, except for the following snippets:

We then discovered that the glans penis responded to cutaneous stimuli in that peculiar manner with which we were already familiar from our study of thefirststageofrecoveryafternervedivision.

On turning to von Frey’s account of the glans penis ([9] p. 175) we found a brilliant description of a part endowed with protopathic and deep sensibility only. We can add nothing material to this remarkable description, but shall attempt to show how exactly in the case of H. the response of this organ to cutaneous stimuli corresponds to that of the highly protopathic area, which remains on the back of his hand….

[An] interrupted current almost painless on the normal skin causes an aching, tingling sensation over the glans which is extremely unpleasant. The characteristic “whirring” sensation is absent and is replaced by a slowly increasing diffused pain. The most remarkable peculiarities are shown in the behaviour of the glans to heat and cold. In the

case of H., there appear to be no heatspots except in the neighbourhood of the corona; the body and tip of the glans are entirely insensitive to heat. But cold-spots abound and paradox-cold can be as easily evoked…

We therefore made a number of observations in the following manner. The foreskin was drawn back, and the penis allowed to hang downwards. A number of drinking glasses were prepared containing water at different temperatures. H. stood with his eyes closed, and R. gradually approached one of the glasses until the surface of the water covered the glans but did not touch the foreskin. Contact with thefluidwasnotappreciated;if,therefore,thetemperature of the water was such that it did not produce a sensation of heat or cold, H. was unaware that anything had been done….

Henry Head, in a photograph taken in or near 1914.

Lord Brain’s tribute, published in Brain, to Henry Head, perhaps his most eminent predecessor as editor of the journal.



1923—A Brain- and Brain-filled Year of Lasts and FirstsThe year 1923 was a historic year for Head and for Brain, and one could argue, especially for Brain.First,Brain’sfirstarticleinBrain appeared. Though brief, it was and remains one of the few well-regarded medical studies that includes the phrase “cracked-pot” in its title:

“Clinical Meeting Held May 10, 1923: Case of Right Frontal Tumour; Cracked-pot Percussion NoteoverRightFrontalBone;LeftPalmarReflex,”Dr. George Riddoch and Dr. Russell Brain, Brain, vol. 46, no. 2, 1923, p. 246.

Then, just months later, came Head’s last article in Brain:

“Speech and Cerebral Localization,” Henry Head, Brain, vol. 46, no. 4, 1923, pp. 355–528.

Thus there was a brief but documented period in which both Head, as head, and Brain, headed to eventually become head, wereofficiallypartofBrain.

Head on Brain in Brain (continued) References and NotesThe full citation for Brain on Head in Brain is:

“Henry Head: The Man and His Ideas,” Russell Brain, Brain, vol. 84, no. 4, December 1961, pp. 561–6.

ThetitleofHead’sfirstarticleinBrain alluded only indirectly to the head and brain:

“On Disturbances of Sensation with Especial Reference to the Pain of Visceral Disease,” Henry Head, Brain, vol. 16, nos. 1-2, 1893, pp. 1-133.

Brain itself eventually produced a small essay about Head and Brain and other editors of Brain.

“Editorial,” Alastair Compston, Brain, vol. 127, 2004, pp. 1689–90.

The monograph in which Head addressed the head of his penis.

In one of Brain’s final articles in Brain, Brain confronts the classical mind/brain question.

Improbable TVCheck out the latest episode on Improbable Research TV. Then watch them all! WHAT: Three-minute videos about research

that makes people laugh, then think. WHERE: On the web, at www.improbable.com

and elsewhere.

What’s New on




Brain Damage May Be an Advantage for Gamblersby Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research Staff

Brain damage has its disadvantages, but an American study suggests that it can sometimes give gamblers a winning edge.Theresearcherstakeaflieratexplaininghowandwhycertain brain lesions might, in some circumstances, help a person triumph over others or over adversity.The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, renders its tantalizing, juicy question into lofty academese. Thefiveco-authors,ledbyBabaShiv,amarketingprofessorat Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, ask: “Can dysfunction in neural systems subserving emotion lead, under certain circumstances, to more advantageous decisions?”The team experimented with people who had abnormalities in the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the right insular or somatosensory cortex. Medically, such abnormalities can be a sign that something’s amiss in how the person handles emotions (and/or vice-versa, the other being a sign of the one).Each brain-damaged person got a wad of play money and instructions to gamble on 20 rounds of coin tossing (heads-you-win/tails-you-lose, with some added twists). Other people, who had no such brain lesions, got the same amount of money, and the same gambling instructions.The brain-damaged gamblers pretty consistently ended up with more money than their healthier-brained competitors. The researchers speculate that when “normal” gamblers encounter a run of unhappy coin toss results, they get discouraged and become cautious—perhaps too cautions.

Not so the people with brain lesion–induced emotional dysfunction. Encountering a run of bad luck, they plunge on, undaunted, and then enjoy a relatively handsome payoff. At least sometimes.The study notes that this brain damage side-effect might occasionally even save someone’s life. They cite the case of a man with ventromedial prefrontal damage who was driving under hazardous road conditions: “When other drivers reached an icy patch, they hit their brakes in panic, causing their vehicles to skid out of control, but the patient crossed the icy patch unperturbed, gently pulling away from a tailspin and driving ahead safely. The patient remembered the fact that not hitting the brakes was the appropriate behavior, and his lack of fear allowed him to perform optimally.”Lead author Baba Shiv has an eye for nonstandard ways of exploring the weird morass that is human behavior. He sometimes teaches a course called “The Frinky Science of the Mind.” In 2008 he and three colleagues were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.

Reference“Investment Behavior and the Negative Side of Emotion,” Baba Shiv, George Loewenstein, Antoine Bechara, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio R. Damasio, Psychological Science, vol. 16, no. 6, June 2005, pp. 435–9.



The Psychoanalyst Says Your Gut Says…by Marc Abrahams, Improbable Research staff

Somepsychoanalystscanfindmeaninginthemostordinary-seeming bits of your life. Some discern it even in your intestinal rumblings. There’s a technical name for those digestive sounds: borborygmi. Several published studies tell how to interpret people’s gut feelings—how to translate those borborygmi into common everyday words.In 1984, Prof. Dr. Christian Müller of Hôpital de Cery in Prilly, Switzerland, published a report called “New Observations on Body Organ Language,” in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomics.

“New Observations on Body Organ Language,” Christian Muller, Psychotherapy and Psychosomics, vol. 42, nos. 1–4, 1984, pp. 124–6.

Müller paraphrases a 1918 essay by someone named Willener that “concludes that the phenomenon generally known as borborygmi must be regarded as crypto-grammatically encoded body signals that could be interpreted with the help of [special] apparatus.” Müller laments that Willener’s “attempts to follow up on his theory were thwarted by the defects of recording techniques at that time.”Happily, Müller himself had access to later, better equipment. “We have been trying at our clinic since 1980,” he writes, “to combine electromesenterography with Spindel’s alamograph, and in addition to use digital transformation for a quantitative analysis of the curves via computer.”

Müller reveals his greatest interpretive triumph:

The presence of a negative transference situation wasnotdifficulttodeducefromthefollowingsequence: ‘Ro… Pi… le… me… 1o…’. The following translation is certainly an appropriate rendering: ‘Rotten pig. leave me alone.’

This lovely piece of deadpan, intentional nonsense, I am told, was swallowed whole by some readers, and perhaps also some journal editors.A few years later, Guy Da Silva, a Montreal psychoanalyst, published several apparently quite serious papers about the psychoanalyticalsignificanceofborborygmi.The most accessible (in my view, anyway) is his “Borborygmi as Markers of Psychic Work During the Analytic Session: A Contribution to Freud’s Experience of Satisfaction and to Bion’s Idea About the Digestive Model for the Thinking Apparatus.” This professionally dense monograph appeared in a 1990 issue of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. Freud is Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalysis pioneer who lived in Vienna, Austria. Bion is Wilfred Ruprecht Bion, director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis in the 1950s, and later president of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.



“Borborygmi as Markers of Psychic Work During the Analytic Session: A Contribution to Freud’s Experience of Satisfaction and to Bion’s Idea About the Digestive Model for the Thinking Apparatus,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. 71, 1990, p. 641–59.

“The Emergence of Thinking: Bion as the Link Between Freud and the Neurosciences,” Guy Da Silva, in M. Grignon (Ed.) Psychoanalysis and the Zest for Living: Reflections and Psychoanalytic Writings in Memory of W.C.M. Scott, ESF Publishers, Binghamton, NY, 1998.

“Le Modèle Alimentaire dans la Théorie de la Pensée de Bion: Suivi d’une Application de ce Modèle dans l’Analyse d’un Patient,” Guy Da Silva, Symposium of the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal, Spring 1992.

Guy Da Silva digested a little Freud together with a little Bion. He writes: “Borborygmi may signal the process and acquisition of new thoughts (symbolization) and the free associations derived from borborygmi often provide the key to the understanding of the session by linking the verbalflowofideastotheunderlyingsensoryandaffectiveexperience, thereby providing a ‘moment of truth’. Within the primitive maternal transference, borborygmi are often accompaniments to the fantasy or the hallucination of being fed by the analyst.”

The name Guy Da Silva will be familiar to some readers as thestarofhundredsofpsychologicallygut-wrenchingfilms,among them Beyond Reality 3, The Lube Guy, Attack of the Killer Dildos, and Porn-O-Matic 2000. But Guy Da Silva the actor and Guy Da Silva the psychoanalyst are not the same person, no matter how similarly stimulating their work may be.

Richard Roberts*, New England BiolabsMolecular PharmacologyLloyd Fricker, Einstein Coll. of MedicineNeuroengineeringJerome Lettvin, MITNeurologyThomas D. Sabin, Tufts U.NutritionBrian Wansink*******, Cornell U. OrnithologyKees Moeliker*******, Natuurhistorisch

Museum Rotterdam

Obstetrics & GynecologyPek van Andel*******, Medical Faculty

Groningen, The NetherlandsEberhard W. Lisse, Swakopmund State

Hospital, NamibiaOrthopedic SurgeryGlenn R. Johnson, Bemidji, MNPaleontologySally Shelton, Museum of Geology, South

Dakota School of Mines and TechnologyEarle Spamer, American Philosophical Society,

Philadelphia, PAParasitologyWendy Cooper, Australian Pest &

Vet. Med. Auth.PediatricsRonald M. Mack, Bowman Gray

School of Med.PharmacologyStanton G. Kimmel, Normal, OKPhilosophyGeorge Englebretson, Bishop’s U., Quebec

AnthropologyJonathan Marks, U. North CarolinaArchaeologyAngela E. Close, U. WashingtonAstrochemistryScott Sandford, NASA/AmesAstronomyRobert Kirshner, Harvard U.Jay M. Pasachoff, Williams Coll.Eric Schulman, Alexandria, VirginiaDavid Slavsky. Loyola U., ChicagoBiologyDany Adams, Tufts U.Lawrence Dill*******, Simon Fraser U.BiomaterialsAlan S. Litsky, Ohio State U.BiophysicsLeonard X. Finegold, Drexel U.BiotechnologyA. Stephen Dahms, Alfred E. Mann

FoundationBureaucracyMiriam Bloom, SciWrite, Jackson, MSCardiologyThomas Michel*****, Harvard Med. SchoolChemistryDudley Herschbach*, Harvard U.William Lipscomb*, Harvard U.Computer ScienceDennis Frailey, Texas Instruments, Plano, TXRobert T. Morris***, MITMargo Seltzer, Harvard U.EconomicsErnst W. Stromsdorfer, Washington St. U.EngineeringDean Kamen, DEKA Research

Food ResearchMassimo Marcone, U. of Guelph

A Guide to the Stars* Nobel Laureate** world’s highest IQ*** convicted felon**** misspelled***** sibling rivalry****** six stars******* Ig Nobel Winner

Forensic Biology & CriminalisticsMark Benecke, Int’l Forensic Res., KölnFunctional Biology & MorphologyFrank Fish, West Chester U.Rebecca German, Johns Hopkins U.Richard Wassersug*******, Dalhousie U.GeneticsMichael Hengartner, U. of ZürichGeologyJohn C. Holden, Omak, WAJohn Splettstoesser, Waconia, MNHistory of Science & MedicineTim Healey, Barnsley, EnglandImmunologyFalk Fish, Orgenics, Ltd., Yavne, IsraelInfectious DiseasesJames Michel*****, Harvard U.IntelligenceMarilyn Vos Savant**, New York, NYLawWilliam J. Maloney, New York, NYRonald A. May, Little Rock, ARLibrary & Info SciencesRegina Reynolds, Library of CongressGeorge Valas, Budapest, HungaryNorman D. Stevens, U. of ConnecticutMarine BiologyMagnus Wahlberg*******, U. of

Southern DenmarkMaterials ScienceRobert M. Rose, MITMedical EthicsErwin J.O. Kompanje, Erasmus MC

University, RotterdamMethodologyRod Levine, National Insts of HealthMolecular BiologyWalter Gilbert*, Harvard U.

PhysicsLen Fisher*******,

Bristol U., UKJerome Friedman*, MITSheldon Glashow*, Boston U.Karl Kruszelnicki*******,

U. SydneyHarry Lipkin, Weizmann Inst.Douglas Osheroff*, Stanford U.Frank Wilczek*, MITPolitical ScienceRichard G. Neimi****, Rochester, NYPsychiatry and NeurologyRobert Hoffman, Daly City, CAPsychologyDan Ariely*******, Duke U Louis G. Lippman, Western Wash. U.G. Neil Martin, Middlesex U., UKChris McManus*******, University Coll.

LondonNeil J. Salkind, U. of KansasRichard Wiseman, U of HertfordshirePulmonary MedicineTraian Mihaescu, Iasi, RomaniaScience PolicyAl Teich, American Assn for the Advancement

of ScienceStochastic Processes(selected at random from amongst

our subscribers)Jens Hvelplund, Copenhagen, DenmarkSwordswallowingDan Meyer *******, Cutting Edge

InnertainmentWomen’s HealthAndrea Dunaif, Northwestern U.JoAnn Manson, Brigham & Women’s Hosp.

Annals of Improbable Research Editorial Board



Plucked From Obscurity:An Immortality Pump for the HeadInventive, yet under-publicized devicesby Marina Tsipis, Improbable Research staff

U.S. patent application #4,666,425, for a “Device For Perfusing an Animal Head,” was granted to Chet Fleming of St. Louis, Missouri on May 19, 1987. The document explains:

This invention involves a device, referred to herein as a ‘cabinet,’ which provides physical and biochemical support for an animal’s head which has been “discorporated” (i.e., severed from its body). This device can be used to supply a discorped head with oxygenated blood and nutrients, by means of tubes connected to arteries which pass through the neck…. The cabinet provides physical support for the head, by means of a collar around the neck, pins attached to one or more vertebrae, or similar mechanical means.

The document cites, among other things, the report:

“Brain,” Robert I. White, in Organ Preservation for Transplantation, 2nd ed., Armand M. Karow and David E. Pegg, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1981, pp. 655–74.

The image here, reproduced from the patent, shows the basic component blocks of the entire operation, the key block being the disembodied head.

Inventor Fleming also wrote a book about invention:

If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive… Discorpo-ration and U.S. Patent 4,666,425, Chet Fleming, Polinym Press, 1988, ISBN 0-942287-02-9.

Fleming later published a letter in the British Medical Journal (“If we can keep a severed head alive…”, Chet Fleming, BMJ, vol. 297, no. 6655, October 22, 1988, p. 1048), responding to a review of the book. He writes:

Itisfarmoredifficulttoobtainapropheticpatentin America than Professor Hamblin suggests. Such patents usually must be limited to mechanical systems, since mechanical components are more predictable than chemical reactions or experimental drugs. Every component must be publicly available and the inventor must describe explicitly how to assemble and use them. If I hadn’t been a patent attorney specialising in biochemistry and medical technology and if I hadn’t spent hundreds of hours researching each component and consulting surgeons and biochemists I couldn’t have obtained the patent. Your reviewer asks: Would anyone want theoperation?Ihavebeencontactedbyhalfadozenpeople who want to know how soon the operation will be available and how much it will cost.



AIR Teachers’ GuideThree out of five teachers agree: curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially in stu-dents. If you are one of the other two teachers, AIR and mini-AIR can be power-ful tools. Choose your favorite hAIR-raising article and give copies to your stu-dents. The approach is simple. The scientist thinks that he (or she, or whatever), of all people, has discovered something about how the universe behaves. So:

• Is this scientist right—and what does “right” mean, anyway?

• Can you think of even one different explanation that works as well or better?

• Did the test really, really, truly, unquestionably, completely test what the author thought he was testing?

• Is the scientist ruthlessly honest with himself about how well his idea explains everything, or could he be suffering from wishful thinking?

• Some people might say this is foolish. Should you take their word for it?

• Other people might say this is absolutely correct and important. Should you take their word for it?

Kids are naturally good scientists. Help them stay that way.

A technical diagram from the patent.

Fleming’s letter responding to a review, in the British Medical Journal, of his book.

Fleming’s book.



Temperamental Headsby Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research Staff

Each of these heads represents one of the temperaments of man (and/or of woman), as shown and explained in the book Heads and Faces, and How to Study Them: A Manual of Phrenology and Physiognomy, by Nelson Sizer and Henry Shipman Drayton, Fowler and Wells (publishers), New York, 1888.





May We Recommend: Chewing and the AlphabetItems that merit a trip to the librarycompiled by Stephen Drew, Improbable Research staff

Chews and Swallows and the Microstructure of Eating,” Eliot Stellar and E.E. Shrager, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 42, November 1985, pp. 973–82. The authors, at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, report:

To permit recording during a meal at this stage of our work, the leads of the strain gauge terminate in a miniature socket, mounted on the buccal surface of the right molarsothatafinewireleadtoakymographcan be plugged in. This wire is led out of the right corner of the mouth and draped over the ear to keep it out of the way…

[Only] minor perturbations of the baseline occur with saying the alphabet and talking. These are probably due to the effects of breathing through the mouth.

Detail of the study: A graph showing output from the sensor corresponding to “alternating chews and swallows, following a large bite of hotdog on a roll.”



Detail from the study: a photograph of the oral sensor, described as being “a dental arch, fastened to the back molars. It has a palate plate (center) containing a strain gauge sensitive to tongue pressure during swallowing and flexing during chewing.”

Send payment to: Annals of Improbable Research PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA

(+1) 617-491-4437 FAX: (+1) 617-661-0927 <[email protected]>

One Copy – USA $9, elsewhere $11 (includes shipping) Multiple Copies – USA $7, elsewhere $9 (includes shipping)

Downloadable PDFs of many back issues (and the

tables-of-contents of *every* issue) are available on our web

site www.improbable.com

COMPLETE SETS: phone or email us for details. (NOTE: Each complete set includes original copies of MOST of the issues, and photocopies of every other issue.)

ISSUES MARKED “SOLD OUT”: are available, if at all, ONLY as part of a complete set.

AIR 1:1 – Premier Issue SOLD OUT AIR 1:2 – Teachers’ Issue SOLD OUT AIR 1:3 – Food Issue SOLD OUTAIR 1:4 – Paleontology Issue SOLD OUT AIR 1:5 – Pediatrics Issue SOLD OUTAIR 1:6 – Animal Behavior Issue SOLD OUTAIR 2:1 – Ig Nobel Prize Issue SOLD OUTAIR 2:2 – Annual Swimsuit Issue SOLD OUT AIR 2:3 – Symmetra Cover IssueAIR 2:4 – Typo Issue. SOLD OUTAIR 2:5 – Generic Issue SOLD OUTAIR 2:6 – Martian Meteorite Issue AIR 3:1 – Ig Nobel Prize Issue SOLD OUT AIR 3:2 – Annual Swimsuit IssueAIR 3:3 – Managed Health Care IssueAIR 3:4 – Peculiar Patents IssueAIR 3:5 – How-To Issue AIR 3:6 – Parapsychology Issue AIR 4:1 – Ig Nobel Prize Issue SOLD OUTAIR 4:2 – Annual Swimsuit Issue SOLD OUTAIR 4:3 – Cough & Apology Issue SOLD OUTAIR 4:4 – Animal Behavior Issue SOLD OUTAIR 4:5 – Social Science IssueAIR 4:6 – Math & Money IssueAIR 5:1 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 5:2 – Annual Swimsuit Issue. SOLD OUTAIR 5:3 – Movie Issue

AIR 5:4 – Coffee & Tea Issue AIR 5:5 – Bearded Men IssueAIR 5:6 – Education Issue SOLD OUTAIR 6:1 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 6:2 – Crabs & UFOs IssueAIR 6:3 – Crime & Punishment Issue

SOLD OUTAIR 6:4 – Postage & Handling Issue SOLD OUTAIR 6:5 – Bomby the Bombardier Beetle Issue

SOLD OUT AIR 6:6 – Eccentrics Issue SOLD OUTAIR 7:1 – Ig Nobel /Sweetie-Poo Issue

SOLD OUTAIR 7:2 – YAVIS Psychology IssueAIR 7:3 – Physics Issue AIR 7:4 – Behavior IssueAIR 7:5 – Animal & Vegetable IssueAIR 7:6 – Holy Grail IssueAIR 8:1 – Ig Nobel /Wedding IssueAIR 8:2 – Pizza, Sex & TV (and Cheese) Issue AIR 8:3 – Nano-Friendship IssueAIR 8:4 – Wiener Sausage IssueAIR 8:5 – Smelly IssueAIR 8:6 – Art & Science IssueAIR 9:1 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 9:2 – Dismal Science IssueAIR 9:3 – Everything IssueAIR 9:4 – Chicken & Fish Issue

BACK ISSUES

AIR 9:5 – Murphy’s Law IssueAIR 9:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 10:1 – Beauty IssueAIR 10:2 – Way To Go IssueAIR 10:3 – Loss of Innocence IssueAIR 10:4 – Astronomy IssueAIR 10:5 – Cats IssueAIR 10:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 11:1 – Yawning IssueAIR 11:2 – Puzzling Solutions IssueAIR 11:3 – Security IssueAIR 11:4 – Snails & Cookies Issue

SOLD OUTAIR 11:5 – Harry Potter & the Exploding

Toads IssueAIR 11:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 12:1 – Fame & Fortune IssueAIR 12:2 – Painting IssueAIR 12:3 – Fish & Chips IssueAIR 12:4 – The Issue SOLD OUTAIR 12:5 – Anatomy Issue SOLD OUTAIR 12:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 13:1 – Coke & Pepsi & Coli IssueAIR 13:2 – Theoretical Figures IssueAIR 13:3 – Rivalry Issue

AIR 13:4 – What’s in Your Head IssueAIR 13:5 – Meaning of the Finger IssueAIR 13:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR14:1–Reclassification/RenamingIssueAIR 14:2 – Writing Research IssueAIR 14:3 – Anti-Terrorism IssueAIR 14:4 – Colorful Research IssueAIR 14:5 – Dots and Spots IssueAIR 14:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 15:1 – Mummies, Zombies, & Bagels IssueAIR 15:2 – Navel Lint IssueAIR 15:3 – Accounting IssueAIR 15:4 – Instructions & Executions IssueAIR 15:5 – Helmets & Lost Planets IssueAIR 15:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 16:1 – Beards & Bagels & Paper Airplanes IssueAIR 16:2 – Geography & Teabagging IssueAIR 16:3 – Orgy & Handwashing Issue AIR 16:4 – Mathematics IssueAIR 16:5 – Skunk & Canyon IssueAIR 16:6 – Ig Nobel IssueAIR 17:1 – Missing Pieces Issue

Teachers: You have our permission – and encouragement –

to photocopy AIR articles and hand them out in your classroom.



Icky Cutesy Research ReviewResearch reports that are icky and/or cutesycompiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research staff

Cutesy: Flies in the Face of Adversity“Flies in the Face of Adversity,” Mark Fellowes and Kerry Hutcheson, The Biologist, vol. 48, no. 2, April 2001, pp. 75–8. The authors explain that their report:

Discusseshowfruitfliescanbe able to defend themselves against the attack of predators.

Cutesy and Icky: Balsamic Beer“Try It, You’ll Like It: The InfluenceofExpectation,Consumption, and Revelation on Preferences for Beer,” Leonard Lee, Shane Frederick, and Dan Ariely, Psychological Science, 2006, vol. 17, no. 12. (Thanks to Martin Gardiner for bringing this to our attention.) Ariely and several other colleagues were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2008 for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine. Here, the authors explain that:

Patrons of a pub evaluated regular beer and “MIT brew” (the same regular beer with some balsamic vinegar) in one of three conditions. One group tasted the samples blind (the secret ingredient was never disclosed). A second group was informed of the contents before tasting. A third group learned of the secret ingredient immediately after tasting, but prior to indicating their preference…. Disclosureofthesecretingredientsignificantlyreduced preference only when the disclosure preceded tasting, suggesting that disclosure affected preferencesbyinfluencingtheexperienceitself,rather than by acting as an independent negative input or by modifying retrospective interpretation of the experience.

Icky: Tee in the Eye“Penetrating Eye Injury Caused by a Golf Tee,” Alan Mulvihill, Jane O’Sullivan, and Patricia Logan, British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 81, 1997, p. 91. The authors, at Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Dublin, Ireland, write:

We report a case of penetrating eye injury caused by a golf tee…. The number of “teeings off” every year in Ireland alone probably runs into several millions or even hundreds of millions. In this unit we have seen many golf injuries though these are usually from golf clubs or balls, but we have never before seen one caused by a golf tee.



Save the Date: Thursday,

September 29, 201121st First Annual Ig® Nobel

Prize Ceremony!

Keynote Address, 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Photo: Kees Moeliker.

Tickets go on sale August 1, 2011

Sanders Theatre Harvard University

Live Webcast at www.improbable.com



Soft Is HardFurther evidence why the “soft” sciences are the hardest to do wellcompiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell and Bissell Mango, Improbable Research staff

Interacting with Women Can Impair Men’s Cognitive Functioning“Interacting with Women Can Impair Men’s Cognitive Functioning,” Johan C. Karremans, Thijs Verwijmeren, Tila M. Pronk, and Meyke Reitsma, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 45, no. 4, 2009. (Thanks to Joan Baugh and Vicki Hollett for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, report:

The present research tested the prediction that mixed-sex interactions may temporarily impair cognitive functioning. Two studies, in which participants interacted either with a same-sex or opposite-sex other, demonstrated that men’s (but not women’s) cognitive performance declined following a mixed-sex encounter. In line with our theoretical reasoning, this effect occurred more strongly to the extent that the opposite-sex other was perceived as more attractive (Study 1), and to the extent that participants reported higher levels of impression management motivation (Study 2). Implications for the general role of interpersonal processes in cognitive functioning, and some practical implications, are discussed.

The Sex Lives of Cult Television Characters“The Sex Lives of Cult Television Characters,” Dr. Sara Gwenllian Jones, Screen, vol. 43 no. 1, Spring 2002, pp. 79–90.

Some Effects of a Full Bladder on Decision-Making“Inhibitory Spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains,” Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, SSRN paper # SSRN-id1720956, December 7, 2010, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1720956>. The authors, at University of Twente, University of Groningen, and Katholik University of Leuven, explain:

An important and daily experienced physiological sensation that relies on inhibitory responses is controlling one’s bladder in the face of accumulatingurine.Afillingbladderincreasinglytriggersinhibitoryresponses(Griffiths&Tadic,2008). People increasingly have to inhibit their (motor) impulse to void. The inhibition of this motor response is present while people engage in other behaviors, making these simultaneously occurring behaviors susceptible for inhibitory spillover effects….

We show that urination urgency correlates with improved performance on color naming but not word meaning trials of a Stroop task (Study 1). In Study 2 and 3, we show that higher levels of bladder control result in an increasing ability to resist more immediate temptations in monetary decision making.



Meaningful Phone Numbers“I 5683 You: Dialing Phone Numbers on Cell Phones Activates Key-Concordant Concepts,” Sascha Topolinski, Psychological Science, epub before print, January 26, 2011. The author, at the University of Würzburg, Germany, reports:

This study tested whether sequences of simulations of virtual action effects can be integrated into a meaning of their own. Cell phones were used to test this hypothesis because pressing a key on a phone is habitually associated with both digits (dialing numbers) and letters (typing text messages). In Experiment 1, dialing digit sequences induced the meaning of words that share the same key sequence (e.g., 5683, LOVE). This occurred even though the letters were not labeled on the keypad, and participants were not aware of the digit-letter correspondences. In Experiment 2, subjects preferred dialing numbers implying positive words (e.g., 37326, DREAM) over dialing numbers implying negative words (e.g., 75463, SLIME). In Experiment 3, subjects preferred companies with phone numbers implying a company-related word (e.g., LOVE for a dating agency, CORPSE for a mortician) compared with companies with phone numbers implying a company-unrelated word.

Road-Crossing Behavior in Humans“Collective Behavior in Road Crossing Pedestrians: The Role of Social Information,” Jolyon J. Faria, Stefan Krause, and Jens Krause, Behavioral Ecology, vol. 21, no. 6, 2010, pp. 1236-42. (Thanks to Adrian Smith for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the University of Leeds, explain:

Tojudgeasafegapintraffic,pedestrianscanusesocialinformation,suchasthecrossingbehaviorofothers,andfollow others across the road. We tested if pedestrians followed others in this scenario…. We found that on average a person was 1.5–2.5 times more likely to cross if their neighbor had started to cross. Second, we found that males tended to follow others more than females. Third, we observed that some individuals started to cross and then returned to the roadside. These individuals were more frequently found in groups and tended to start to cross relatively later than other pedestrians….

[We]proposethattherelativelysmallbenefitofa reduced waiting time came at the cost of an increasedriskofinjury,makingthebeneficialvalue of social information use questionable in this context.

Details from Topolinski’s study about the effects, on people dialing cell phones, of some possible meanings of some of those numbers.



Puzzling SolutionsSolution to Last Month’s Puzzlerby Emil Filterbag, Improbable Research staff

Questions 1-5 cancel each other out. Thus the answer is found by solving questions 6-19, resulting in the logical conclusion:

Three (3) liters of pomade.



Ig® Nobel Limericks: Slime, Nation, BeerIg Nobel Achievements distilled into limerick formby Martin Eiger, Improbable Research Limerick Laureate

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achieve-mentsthatfirstmakepeoplelaugh,thenmake them think. For details of all the Ig Nobel Prize–winning achievements, see each year’s special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine, and also see http://improbable.com/ig/winners.

2008 Ig Nobel Cognitive Science PrizeToshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Agota Tsth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.REFERENCE: “Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism,” Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470.

The crossword has left me at sea.

The sudoku’s as hard as can be.

Though it won’t be as fun,I will get them done.A slime mold will solve them

for me.

2003 Ig Nobel Economics PrizeThe prize was awarded to Karl Schwarzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.

In Liechtenstein, one shouldn’t miss

A chance of a lifetime like this.

You can rent the whole nation

For your celebration,A wedding, bar mitzvah,

or bris.

2002 Ig Nobel Physics PrizeArnd Leike of the University of Munich, for demonstrating that beer froth obeys the mathematical law of exponential decay. REFERENCE: “Demonstration of the Exponential Decay Law Using Beer Froth,” Arnd Leike, European Journal of Physics, vol. 23, January 2002, pp. 21–6.

There’s a beer on the table near me.

As I stare at it, clearly, I seeA continuous dropIn the foam on the topAs e to the negative t.

Detail from Nakagaki et al.’s study “Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism.”

Detail from a brochure describing the rental availability of the nation of Liechtenstein.



Boys Will Be BoysResearch by and for adolescent males of all ages and sexes compiled by Katherine Lee, Improbable Research staff

Potty-Talk in Parisian Plays“Potty-Talk in Parisian Plays,” Elizabeth K. Menon, Art Journal, vol. 52. no. 3, fall 1993, pp 59–64. The author explains:

Probes on the use of scatological references in theatrical productions at the end of the 19th century with focus on the plays La Berline de l’emigre by Henry Somm and Ubu roi by Alfred Jarry. Interpretation as comments upon the bourgeoisie and their position with the lower class; manifestation of hatred of the bourgeoisie in the ideas and practices of the anarchists; use of scatological dialogue.

Chemical Processes in the Deep Interior of Uranus“Chemical Processes in the Deep Interior of Uranus,” Ricky Chau, Sebastien Hamel, William J. Nellis, Nature Communications, vol. 2, no. 2, epub ahead of print, February 22, 2011. The authors are at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, U.S.A.

What Makes Buttocks Beautiful?“WhatMakesButtocksBeautiful?AReviewandClassificationoftheDeterminants of Gluteal Beauty and the Surgical Techniques to Achieve Them,” Ramon Cuenca-Guerra, and Jorge Quezada, Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, vol. 28, 2004, pp. 340–7. (Thanks to Amy McLennan for bringing this to our attention.)

No reports can be found in medical literature describing the anatomic details that make the buttocks beautiful, nor the defects in this region that can help the surgeon decide whether gluteal prostheses are necessary or not, and, if so, which type, design, and volume of prostheses should be used, in which plane they should be placed, and so forth.

Methods: The authors studied 1,320 photographs of nude women and measured 132 female patients ages 16 to 62 years. They found that four characteristics determine attractive buttocks. They also found the balanced anatomic dimension of the maximal gluteal projection.

Detail from the study on what makes buttocks beautiful.

>



Sexual Orientation and Penile Size“The Relation Between Sexual Orientation and Penile Size.” Anthony F. Bogaert and Scott Hershberger, Annals of Sexual Behavior, vol. 28, no. 3, 1999, pp. 213–21. (Thanks to Benja Fallenstein for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Brock University, Canada, and California State University, U.S.A., report:

The relation between sexual orientation and penile dimensions in a large sample of men was studied. Subjects were 5122 men interviewed by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction from 1938 to 1963. They were dichotomouslyclassifiedaseitherhomosexual(n=935)orheterosexual (n = 4187). Penile dimensions were assessed usingfivemeasuresofpenilelengthandcircumferencefromKinsey’soriginalprotocol.Onallfivemeasures,homosexualmen reported larger penises than did heterosexual men. Explanations for these differences are discussed, including thepossibilitythatthesefindingsprovideadditionalevidencethat variations in prenatal hormonal levels (or other biological mechanisms affecting reproductive structures) affect sexual orientation development. Detail from the study on sexual orientation and penile size.

Fish Up the Urethra“Unusual Foreign Body In Urinary Bladder: A Case Report,” G. Vezhaventhan and R. Jeyaraman, Internet Journal of Urology. vol. 4, no. 2, 2007. (Thanks to Bill Tallen for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, in Chennai, India, report:

CasePresentation:A14-year-oldboycametouswithcomplaintsofpain,difficultyinvoidingwithdribblingofurine and subsequently developed acute urinary retention of 24 hours duration. On further questioning he gave an interestinghistory.Whilehewascleaningthefishtankinhishouse,hewasholdingafishinhishandandwenttothetoiletforpassingurine.Whilehewaspassingurine,thefishslippedfromhishandandenteredhisurethraandthen he developed all these symptoms. Plain X ray KUB was normal. Abdominal Ultrasonogram showed normal kidneys, bladder was full, and a 1.5 Cm echogenic object found inside the bladder without any after shadow.

Management: With 19F cystoscopic sheath and 30 degree scope, cysto-urethroscopy was done. His urethra was normal.Therewasabout2Cmlongdeadfishfoundinsidethebladder.Wetriedtoremovewithbiopsyforcepsbutunable to hold because of the smooth surface. Then we introduced rigid ureteroscope and with the help of stone grasperthefishwasremovedintoto….

Weassumethatourcasemaybethefirstevidenceoffishtravelingupstreamintheurethra,crossingtheexternalsphincter and entering the bladder.



Ig® and BeyondSome further research adventures of Ig Nobel Prize winnerscompiled by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff®

Is the Brain Overrated?“IstheBrainOverrated?”,IvanR.Schwab and M.M. Coates, British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 87, 2003, p. 525. Dr. Schwab shared an Ig Nobel Prize in 2006 for helping to explain why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. Here the authors report:

Thecubozoanjellyfish,aclassin the phylum Cnidaria, are visually precocious and have surprisingly sophisticated ocular anatomy. While other jellyfishhaveprimitiveeyes,the cubozoans have camera style eyes, much like squid or even vertebrates, although distinct differences exist…. In the Caribbean, this species preys upon copepods, a tiny shrimp-like zooplankton, and must rely upon its vision to keep it in the shafts of lightthatfilterbetweenthemangrove roots where the copepods swarm…. Some cubozoans actually may “chase”fishwithtentacles….So, maybe, the eye doesn’t need a brain, and perhaps the brain is an outpouching of the eye.

Fortune Favors the Bold (and the Italicized)“Fortune Favors the Bold (and the Italicized): EffectsofDisfluencyonEducational Outcomes,” Connor Diemand-Yauman, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, and Erikka B. Vaughan, Cognition, vol. 118, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 114–8. Daniel Oppenheimer was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 for his study “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.” Here, the authors, variously at Princeton University and at Indiana University, report:

Previous research has shownthatdisfluency—thesubjective experience of difficultyassociatedwithcognitive operations—leads to deeper processing. Two studies explore the extent to which this deeper processing engenderedbydisfluency

interventions can lead to improved memory performance. Study 1 found that information in hard-to-read fonts was better remembered than easier to read information in a controlled laboratory setting. Study 2 extended thisfindingtohighschoolclassrooms. The results suggestthatsuperficialchanges to learning materials could yield significantimprovementsin educational outcomes.

Persistence of a Pinch in a Pipe“Persistence of a Pinch in a Pipe,” L. Mahadevan, A. Vaziri, and M. Das, Europhysics Letters, vol. 77, no. 4, February 2007, pp. 5 ff. Mahadevan and other colleagues were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2007 for studying how sheets become wrinkled. The pipe pinch paper says:

Here we provide a particularly surprising consequence of thisconfluenceofgeometryand physics in tubular structures: the anomalously large persistence of a localized pinch in an elastic pipe whose effect decays very slowly as an oscillatory exponential with a persistence length that diverges as the thickness of the tube vanishes, which we confirmexperimentally.Theresult is more a consequence of geometry than material properties, and is thus equally applicable to carbon nanotubes as it is to oil pipelines.

Detail from Mahadevan et al.’s study“Persistence of a Pinch in a Pipe.”

>



XKCD by Randall Monroe: “Time Travel”

xkcd.com



Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK

Subscribe Today!Use this form,

or do it online atwww.improbable.com

Time to Renew!...your subscription to

Annals of Improbable Research

I am giving a GIFT SUBSCRIPTION to:

Name: ___________________________________________

Addr: ____________________________________________

City:_____________________________________________

State/Province: _______________ ZIP: _______________

Country: _________________________________________

Phone: ___________________________________________

E-mail: __________________________________________

___ Send renewal notice to my beneficiary.

___ Send renewal notice to me.

My name, address, and all that:

Name: ___________________________________________

Addr: ____________________________________________

City:_____________________________________________

State/Province: _______________ ZIP: _______________

Country: _________________________________________

Phone: ___________________________________________

E-mail: __________________________________________

Total payment enclosed:______________

Method: ___Check (drawn on US bank) or int’l money order

___Mastercard ___Visa ___Discover

CARD #:________________________________________________________ Sec code:________ EXP. DATE:____________

Please:

___start or ___renew a subscription FOR ME (__1 year (6 issues) __2 yrs )

___start or ___renew a GIFT SUBSCRIPTION (__1 year (6 issues) __2 yrs)

WHEN DOES YOUR SUBSCRIPTION EXPIRE?Your mailing label tells the final YEAR and ISSUE NUMBER of your current subscription. FOR EXAMPLE: "2013:5" or "201305" indicates the fifth issue of the year 2013.

SEND TO: AIR PO Box 380853 Cambridge MA 02238 USA

telephone: 617-491-4437 fax: 617-661-0927

[email protected] www.improbable.com

or do it online at www.improbable.comPrint version (in US dollars) rates. 1 year 2 yrs USA $39 $74 Canada/Mex $49 $94 Overseas $64 $119

www.cafepress.com/ignobel

And get mugged, booked, and shirted at the Improbable Research® online store




Annals of Improbable Research (ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 online) is published six times per year (Jan./Feb., Mar./Apr., May/June, July/Aug., Sep./Oct., Nov./Dec.) by

Improbable Research, Inc., 44-C Sacramento St. P.O. Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA 617-491-4437 FAX: 617-661-0927

<[email protected]>

©Copyright 2011 Annals of Improbable Research.

Subscription rates: US — $39; Canada and Mexico — $49; Overseas — $64.

PERIODICALS postage paid at Boston MAandadditionalmailingoffices.

Change of address: Postmaster please send address changes to: Annals of Improbable Research, PO Box 380853, Cambridge MA 02238.

Claims for missing issues: Claims will be serviced at no charge if received within 90 days of the cover date for domestic subscribers and six months for subscribers outside the US. Duplicate copies cannot be sent to replace issues not delivered because of failure to notify publisher of change of address.

Cancellation: Subscription cancellations willnotbeacceptedafterthefirstissuehas been mailed.

Mastication: AIR is not necessarily printed on edible stock. Mastication is not recommended except under a physician's care.

Language of this notice: This notice is printed in English.

IMPORTANT: AIR was created by the founders and entire former editorial staff (1955-1994) of The Journal of Irreproducible Results. However, AIR is in no way associated with that publica-tion or with its publisher, nor should AIR in any way be confused with either of those entities.

Unclassified AdsThe Annals of Improbable Research disclaims any and all responsibility for the veracity, existence, safety, or sense of any or all contents or consequences of these advertisements. Proceed at your own risk.

Countersigned copy of book I Am Not A Human Being and I Can Prove It, 3rd edition, by Frank Neuman, MD, Ph.D. BOX 11.Bat guano collected by two students of Professor B.E. Birkbeck. BOX 17.Book—The Religious Impulse in Bacteria, by B.H. and L.L. (“Petit Homme”) Legrande, signed second edition. BOX 17.Book—Termite Hunting with the Old Shakiri,signedfirstedition,withauthor’sfingerprintsandfoodstainsand many crushed termites. BOX 20.Lug nut extravaganza. Write for our catalog. BOX 22.Book—The Indecent Docent, fourth edition, signed by a reader. BOX 45.Homemade zygotes. Just like Mom’s. BOX 48.

Signed copy of book I Am Not A Human Being and I Can Prove It, 1st edition, by Frank Neuman, MD, Ph.D. BOX 2.Signed copy of book I Am Not A Human Being and I Can Prove It, 3rd edition, by Frank Neuman, MD, Ph.D. BOX 4. Signed copy of book I Am Not A Human Being and I Can Prove It, 8th edition, by Frank Neuman, MD, Ph.D. BOX 5.Signed copy of book I Am Not A Human Being and I Can Prove It, 3rd edition, by Frank Neuman, MD, Ph.D. Page 16 is missing. BOX 10.

• daily blog

• weekly newspaper column*

• monthly newsletter (mini-AIR)

* Appearing every Tuesday in The Guardian (London) and online

…and more, on our web sitewww.improbable.com




PERIODICALS

What is this picture? (see page 1)

ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 onlineVolume 17, Number 2March–April 2011

Annals of Improbable ResearchP.O. Box 380853Cambridge, MA 02238, USA(+1) 617.491.4437www.improbable.com


Documents

Journal of Improbable Research