I have heard the Science Friday broadcast of the Ig Nobel awards more than once and Becca Austin kindly supplied this book promoting the first issues of The Annals of Improbable Research. This book is a good way to pass the time.
Articles are sometimes only citations such as:
"Could mannequins menstruate?" Minna Rintala and Pertti Mustajoki, British Medical Journal, Dec. 19-26, 1992, vol. 305, pp. 1575-6. (Thanks to Doug Lindsey for bringing this to our attention.) The authors explain: Mannequins that display clothes in fashion shops may influence women's perception of ideal weight. We investigated the changing shape of display figures over time and determined whether women of their size would have enough fat for menstruation....A woman with shape of a modern mannequin would probably not menstruate.
Other articles are a couple of pages such as the reprint of that by Paskevich and Shea or Harvard, "The Ability of Woodchucks to Chuck Cellulose Fibers." Feeding the subjects a 2 x 4 framing stud they determined how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. At the time of publication, they are running another experiment using plywood.
They thank their student assistant, a grad student who majored in Business Administration and was Social Chairman of his fraternity; "we therefore feel confident in qualifying him as an expert in the field." Moreover, in Acknowledgments, "The authors wish to thank the first-year graduate student (whatever his name is) for collecting and examining the vomitus and fecal material, and for reviewing all 336 hours of videotape."
Articles are sometimes only citations such as:
"Could mannequins menstruate?" Minna Rintala and Pertti Mustajoki, British Medical Journal, Dec. 19-26, 1992, vol. 305, pp. 1575-6. (Thanks to Doug Lindsey for bringing this to our attention.) The authors explain: Mannequins that display clothes in fashion shops may influence women's perception of ideal weight. We investigated the changing shape of display figures over time and determined whether women of their size would have enough fat for menstruation....A woman with shape of a modern mannequin would probably not menstruate.
Other articles are a couple of pages such as the reprint of that by Paskevich and Shea or Harvard, "The Ability of Woodchucks to Chuck Cellulose Fibers." Feeding the subjects a 2 x 4 framing stud they determined how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. At the time of publication, they are running another experiment using plywood.
They thank their student assistant, a grad student who majored in Business Administration and was Social Chairman of his fraternity; "we therefore feel confident in qualifying him as an expert in the field." Moreover, in Acknowledgments, "The authors wish to thank the first-year graduate student (whatever his name is) for collecting and examining the vomitus and fecal material, and for reviewing all 336 hours of videotape."
