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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/ Skunk & Canyon ISSue Skunk Stripes Explained, What Lies Behind the Grand Canyon? 09> Teaspoon/Hotdog Extraction… SEPTEMBER|OCTOBER 2010 (volume 16, number 5) $6.50 US|$9.50 CAN 027447088921 Annals of © 2010 Annals of Improbable Research Improbable Research ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 online 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-founders Contributing Editors Events/Readings Coordinator Marc Abrahams Otto Didact, Stephen Drew, Ernest Ersatz, Katherine Meusey Alexander Kohn Emil Filterbag, Karen Hopkin, Alice Kaswell, [email protected] Nick Kim, Katherine Lee, Bissel Mango, Editor Randall Monroe, Steve Nadis, Nan Swift, WEB TEAM Marc Abrahams Tenzing Terwilliger, Marina Tsipis, Bertha Editor [email protected] Vanatian Marc Abrahams [email protected] Research Researchers Webmaster Bureaus and Desks Kristine Danowski, Tom Gill, Mary Kroner, Julia Lunetta Kees Moeliker, European Bureau Chief Wendy Mattson, Tom Roberts Steve Farrar, Edinburgh Desk Chief Technical Eminence Grise Dariusz Jemielniak, Warsaw Desk Chief Improbable Facilitator Dave Feldman, InterfaceThis Magnus Wahlberg, Scandinavian Desk Chief Circulation Director General Factotum Martin Gardiner, Rio de Janeiro Desk Chief Katherine Meusey Jesse Eppers Erwin J.O. Kompanje Ig Nobel Facilitator Willem O. de Jongste Webmaster emerita Lisa Birk Amy Gorin Commutative Editor Design and Art Stanley Eigen, Northeastern U. Webmaster in absentia Geri Sullivan, PROmote Communications Mira Wilczek Associative Editor Lois Malone, Rich & Famous Graphics Mark Dionne Circulation (Counter-clockwise) “When all other contingencies fail, Dissociative Editor James Mahoney whatever remains, however improbable, Rose Fox Art Director emerita must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes VP, Human Resources, and Peaco Todd Psychology Editor “Science is the belief in the ignorance Robin Abrahams of experts.”—Richard Feynman Ptak: Hobo Symbol Map Intriguing imagery from the literature by John F. Ptak Ptak Science Books http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore This is the frontispiece to a book called The Slang Dictionary; or, the Vulgar Words, Street Phrases and Fast Expression of High and Low Society, printed in London by John Camden Hotten in 1872 (and there were earlier editions). It is a hobo or “cadger” (“a mean or vulgar fellow who would rather live on other people than work for himself”) map (or the map of “a tribe of vagabonds”) of the town of Maidstone, in Kent, drawn by a “screever” (a sidewalk chalk artist who normally would draw religious images for money), and showing the various chalked and etched signs (“and other mendicant marks”) that the hobos would leave for one another. This map was a key to the town, indicating, from a hobo’s point of view, what was inviting, what safe, and what dangerous. The book includes a key to the symbols used in the map. Recorded hobo and tramp symbols of this vintage are rare. 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2010 | vol. 16, no. 5 www.improbable.com Contents The 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: Skunk and Canyon 6 What Lies Behind the Grand Canyon?* — Earle E. Spamer 11 Skunk Color Pattern Explained* — Sean J. Barry 13 Skunk Research Review* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell Improbable Research Reviews* On the IFC Ptak: Hobo Symbol Map* — John Ptak Front Cover This trail inside the Grand 4 Improbable Research Review* — Dirk Manley Canyon may be symbolic of 5 Improbable Medical Review* — Bertha Vanatian something to someone. See page 6. 17 Ig® and Beyond* — Nan Swift 18 May We Recommend: Teacher is a Blowhard* — Stephen Drew 20 Icky Cutesy Research Review* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell 22 Soft Is Hard* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell and Bissell Mango On the Back Cover 24 Boys Will Be Boys* — Katherine Lee A small portion of a large collection of items of interest News & Notes in a home workshop in Battle Creek, Michigan USA. Photo 2 AIR Vents (letters from our readers) by Geri Sullivan. 3 AIR Books 16 Editorial Board 18 Teachers’ Guide 19 Puzzling Solutions — Emil Filterbag Coming Events 19 Back Issues 21 XKCD: “Desert Island” — Randall Munroe October 23, 2010 USA Science & Engineering Festival, Washington, D.C. 21 Improbable TV October 31, 2010 w00tstock, Boston, MA 27 How Not To Get Your Article Published — Stephen Drew Nov 3, 2010 Agronomy, Crops, and Soil Science Societies, 27 KIM CARTOON: “Fly Hell” — Nick Kim Long Beach, CA 28 Ig® Nobel Limericks: Love, Cows, Gorby* — Martin Eiger See WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM IBC Unclassified Ads for details of these and other events. www.improbable.com Annals of Improbable Research |September–October 2010 | vol. 16, no. 5 | 1 AIR Vents Exhalations from our readers NOTE: The opinions expressed Mel here represent the opinions on the of the authors and do not Street necessarily represent the Please allow opinions of those who hold me to make other opinions. a correction (perhaps inevi- WRONG- table, given the topic and the WRONG- history thereof) to my recent WRONG contribution to your collection of photographs of Mel, the little WRONG? man who always appears in The letter you your pages, He is clearly visible printed (in AIR 16:4) here standing FOUR—not from Professor WRONG- three, as I mistakenly indicated WRONG-WRONG, a.k.a. last time—persons to the left of Don Weinshank, is, to put it the pole. succinctly, WRONG WRONG I again express my gratitude WRONG. He claimed that you Marconi’s Standing for the way you addressed my continue to misquote Sherlock I am incensed that you published that piece of trash apology for making a mistake in Holmes on your inside cover: called “Marconi Has No Standing” (AIR 15:7). I, the specifics of how I identified “When all other contingencies too, have my doubts as to whether Marconi should the probable location of Mel fail, whatever remains, however receive credit as being “the” inventor of radio. But in that earlier photograph improbable, must be the truth.” surely someone has proof one way or another as which I sent you and which My copy of the Sherlock to whether he had two legs, or for that matter even you published (AIR Vents 16:2) Holmes set (a first edition, to one leg. Marconi was one of my childhood heroes. I first learned and which my uncle came into the extent that the term makes about him in J.C.H. Macbeth’s book Marconi Dictionary: Specially possession of shortly after the sense given that most of the Arranged and Edited for Code Users, which my parents read to me world war in the 1940s. stories were first published every night until I was six years old, after which I read it to them in magazines) proves him As with that photograph, I hope every night until I was 26 and one of them was dead. While I do WRONG WRONG WRONG. that your readers can help me not recall ever seeing a full-length photograph of Marconi, surely I met Professor Weinshank at a identify the date and location someone would have at least mentioned it if he had had fewer than conference one time long ago. of the scene documented in two legs. Here, enclosed, is my favorite photograph of Marconi. We got into an argument about this one, which I believe to My parents willed it to me, and I cherish it still, despite the fact that the veracity of a quotation from be a street or square in some Marconi’s legs are not visible. Surely that is due to the table, which Donald Knuth’s book The Art large city. obscures the view of his lower half. of Computer Programming, Dr. Vreeland Heiss Rosalyn Briand Volume 3: Sorting and Hamburg, Germany Toulouse, France Searching. On that, too, Professor WRONG-WRONG- WRONG was WRONG Marked Quibble WRONG WRONG, but I could About a Mark not get the man to admit it. He I just had a look at the new AIR has never spoken to me again, a (16:4) where in the research review fact that I attribute to our never section you mention the paper “When again having been in the same Zombies Attack.” Unfortunately, you city at the same time. gave a wrong name for the fourth Bill Twomey author. He is not named Robert J. Smith, but Robert J. Burnie, Tasmania, Australia Smith?, including the question mark, as stated on his homepage: http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/ Dipl.-Phys. Björn Sothmann Fachbereich Physik Universität Duisburg-Essen Campus Duisburg, Germany 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | September–October 2010 | vol. 16, no. 5 www.improbable.com Sound Quibble About a Tree I have just finished reading “The Sound-ness of Tree Falls” by Martin Melchior (AIR 16:3). Melchior claims to have empirically answered the age- old question “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” in the affirmative. The flaw with his experiment is that by placing sound recording equipment in the forest, he has ensured that there was someone there to hear it, namely himself via the sound recording equipment.