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Liu, Bing, Liang-Ping Ku, and Wynne Hsu (1997). ‘Discovering Interesting Holes in Data.’ Proceedings of Fifteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Nagoya, Japan: 930–35.
McVeigh, Brian J. (2000). ‘How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool, and Camp: “Consumutopia” Versus “Control” in Japan.’ Journal of Material Culture 5 (2): 225–45.
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May We Recommend
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Bolt, Michael, and Daniel C. Isaksen (2010). ‘Dogs Don’t Need Calculus.’ College Mathematics Journal 41 (1): 10–16.
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Hopton, Robert, Steph Jinks, and Tom Glossop (2010). ‘Determining the Smallest Migratory Bird Native to Britain Able to Carry a Coconut.’ Journal of Physics Special Topics 9 (1).
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An Improbable Innovation
Bodnar, Elena N., Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan (2007). ‘Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.’ US Patent no. 7,255,627, 14 August.
Imai, Makoto, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi, and Junichi Murakami (2009). ‘Odor Generation Alarm and Method for Informing Unusual Situation.’ US Patent application no. 2010/0308995 A1, 9 December.
Keogh, John (2001). ‘Circular Transportation Facilitation Device.’ Australian Innovation Patent no. 2001100012, 2 August.
Li, Zhengcai (2007). ‘A Tittle Obliquity Measurer.’ International Patent application no. PCT/CN2007/003282, 6 December.
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Nutting, William B. (1971). ‘Kiss Throwing Doll.’ US Patent no. 3,603,029, 7 September.
Scruggs, Donald E. (2011). ‘Edged Non-horizontal Burial Containers.’ US Patent no. 8,046,883, 1 November.
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Call For Investigators
Bax, Ad, David Max, and David Zax (1992). ‘Measurement of Long-Range 13C-13C J Couplings in a 20-kDa Protein-Peptide Complex.’ Journal of the American Chemical Society 114 (17): 6923–25.
Illustration Credits
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the many researchers and inventors whose work is illustrated in these pages, sometimes with illustrations, sometimes without.
Selected steps from ‘Method of Concealing Partial Baldness’ (p. 20) from US Patent no. 4,022,227
From ‘Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks’ (p. 30) from US Patent no. 7,255,627
Height vs. distance for footballs kicked on Earth (solid line) and Mars (dashed line) (p. 44) adapted from ‘Association Football on Mars’ by Calum James Meredith, David Boulderstone, and Simon Clapton
X-ray of a road-kill green woodpecker and schematic of woodpecker at work (p. 53) from ‘A Woodpecker Hammer’ by Julian F. V. Vincent, Mehmet Necip Sahinkaya, and W. O’Shea
Geometric division of an elephant from ‘Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants (Elephas maximus indicus) (p. 65) by K. P. Sreekumar and G. Nirmalan
Fish’s stroke frequency vs. swimming velocity in six platypuses (p. 66) adapted from ‘Energetics of Swimming by the Platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus’ by F. E. Fish, R. V. Baudinette, et al.
N.B. Lizardfall plummets in December adapted from ‘Arboreal Sprint Failure’ (p. 71) by William H. Schlesinger, Johannes M. H. Knops, and Thomas H. Nash
Detail from Egede’s monstrous account of 1741 and North Atlantic right whale penis of 2001 (p. 75) from ‘Cetaceans, Sex and Sea Serpents’ by C. G. M. Paxton, Erik Knatterud, and Sharon L. Hedley. Photograph rep
roduced by permission of the New England Aquarium, Boston, Massachusetts.
Sheep personality vs. location adapted from ‘Effects of Group Size and Personality on Social Foraging’ (p. 80) by Pablo Michelena, Angela M. Sibbald, Hans W. Erhard, and James E. McLeod
Distance between two cows during grazing phase (p. 83) adapted from ‘How are Distances Between Individuals of Grazing Cows Explained by a Statistical Model?’ by Masae Shiyomi
Figure: ‘Comparison of amount of faeces accumulated under the lavatory seats in a lavatory at the Antarctic’ (p. 96) from ‘Review of Medical Researches at the Japanese Station (Syowa Base) in the Antarctic’ by H. Yoshimura
Digestive damage to a surviving shrew humerus and surviving shrew tibio-fibula (p. 105) from ‘Human Digestive Effects on a Micromammalian Skeleton’ by Brian D. Crandall and Peter W. Stahl
How to generate a shock pressure wave for tenderizing an article of food (p. 112) from US Patent no. 3,492,688
Figure: ‘The relationship between craving, built, and the eating of chocolate bars …’ (p. 115) adapted from ‘The Development of the Attitudes to Chocolate Questionnaire’ by David Benton, Karen Greenfield, and Michael Morgan
The long and short of bartenders’ pours (p. 130) adapted from ‘Shape of Glass and Amount of Alcohol Poured’ by Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum
Fig. 1 of 13… (p. 147) adapted from US Patent no. 7,266,767
Figure: ‘Two-way interaction of number of meetings and perceived meeting effectiveness to predict job satisfaction’ (p. 156) adapted from ‘Not Another Meeting!’ by S. G. Rogelberg, D. J. Leach, P. B. Warr, and J. L. Burnfield
The patented Kiss-Throwing Doll (p. 168) from US Patent no. 3,603,029
Figure: Types of mounts, with and without mobile phone (p. 180) adapted from ‘Effects of Exposure to a Mobile Phone on Sexual Behavior in Adult Male Rabbit’ by Nader Salama, Tomoteru Kishimoto, Hiro-Omi Kanayama, and Susumu Kagawa
Changes in beard growth during a short stay on the island (p. 185) adapted from N.A., ‘Effects of Sexual Activity on Beard Growth in Man’, Nature 226 (30 May 1970): 869-70
Evidence of a huge Parisian tooth-yanker (p. 196). Courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London.
Dr Bean’s twenty-year nail chart (p. 203) from ‘A Discourse on Nail Growth and Unusual Fingernails’ by William B. Bean
Number of deaths from myocardial infarction, French men vs. French women (p. 208) adapted from ‘Lower Myocardial Infarction Mortality in French Men the Day France Won the 1998 World Cup of Football’ by F. Berthier and F. Boulay
Figure: ‘A tractor backhoe using a square section clamping gripper driver to hold, revolve and press a casket into a pre-bored or augered hole’ (p. 229) from US Patent no. 8,046,883
The eponymous number of clasp knives (p. 231) from ‘Account of a Man Who Lived Ten Years After Having Swallowed a Number of Clasp-Knives, with a Description of the Appearances of the Body After Death’ by Alex. Marcet
Figure: ‘The knife cut which divides the ham into equal area portions’ (p. 236) adapted from ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ by M. J. Kaiser and S. Hossaien Cheraghi
Facial representation of financial performance (p. 242) adapted from ‘Facial Representation of Multivariate Data’ by David L. Huff, Vijay Mahajan, and William
The tittle obliquity measurer (p. 246) from International patent application no. PCT/CN2007/003282
The centre point – the intersection of common sense and the Peter Principle… (p. 250) adapted from ‘The Peter Principle Revised’ by Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo
As feature in Perception vol. 35’s ‘Last But Not Least’ (p. 256) adapted from ‘Eye-witnesses Should Not Do Cryptic Crosswords Prior to Identity Parades’ by Michael B. Lewis
From ‘Net Trapping System for Capturing a Robber Immediately’ (p. 258) from US Patent no. 6,219,959
Underarm stab action’ demonstrated (p. 267) from ‘An Assessment of Human Performance in Stabbing’ by I. Horsfall, P. D. Prosser, C. H. Watson, and S. M. Champion
Os, sampled (p. 270) from ‘Quantification of the Shape of Handwritten Characters’ by Raymond Marquis, Matthieu Schmittbuhl, William David Mazzella, and Franco Taroni
Note from study: The label ‘Hetero’ refers to ‘heterosexual intimate relationships’… (p. 285) adapted from ‘Dude’ by Scott F. Kiesling
‘Audience members overwhelmingly agree that the man on the left is named “Tim” and the man on the right is named “Bob”’ (p. 287) from ‘Who Do You Look Like?’ by Melissa A. Lea, Robin D. Thomas, Nathan A. Lamkin, and Aaron Bell
About the Author
Marc Abrahams is the editor and co-founder of the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research and a weekly columnist for the Guardian. He is the founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which honour achievements that make people laugh, and then think, and which are presented in an annual ceremony at Harvard University. Abrahams and the Ig Nobels have been widely covered by the international media, including the BBC, ABC News, the New York Times, Daily Mail, The Times, USA Today, Wired, New Scientist, Scientific American, and Cocktail Party Physics. He and his wife, Robin, a columnist for the Boston Globe, live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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