Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 114

Bagpiper Thumb Drive

US design patent 720760S1 for a “Bagpiper Thumb Drive,” was granted to Thomas Paul Caldwell and Thomas Paul Caldwell, on January 6, 2015.

The patent document explains: “[This drawing of the] ornamental design for a bagpiper thumb drive… [shows] a lower section disconnected to reveal a Universal Serial Bus (‘USB’) connector protruding from beneath a kilt and housable interior to a pair of legs”

Pocket-Sized #1016: “Apewoman Siren”

Apewoman Siren

In this Pocket-Sized episode #1016, Marc Abrahams shows an unfamiliar research study to Chris Cotsapas. Dramatic readings and reactions ensue.

The research mentioned in this episode is featured in the Important Research issue (Vol. 25, #5) of the Annals of Improbable Research Magazine.

Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public.

1. Chris Cotsapas encounters:

“The Tale of the Apewoman Who Craved to Become a Siren: A Natural Way to Combat Radically Hirsutism,” Lorenzo Martini, Our Dermatology Online, vol. 8, no. 2, 2017, pp. 152-155.

Seth Gliksman, Production Assistant

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Podcasts, AntennaPod, BeyondPod and elsewhere!

Pocket-Sized #1015: “Scary Masks in a Zoo”

Scary Masks in a Zoo

In this Pocket-Sized episode #1015, Marc Abrahams shows an unfamiliar research study to Jean Berko Gleason. Dramatic readings and reactions ensue.

Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public.

1. Jean Berko Gleason encounters:

“Perception of Scary Halloween Masks by Zoo Animals and Humans,” Joan M. Sinnott, H. Anton Speaker, Laura A. Powell, and Kelly W. Mosteller, International Journal of Comparative Psychology 25 (2012): 83-96. 

Seth Gliksman, Production Assistant

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Podcasts, AntennaPod, BeyondPod and elsewhere!

Dead Salmon Spirit: Can You Not Tell Cats from Covid-19?

In the spirit of the Ig Nobel Prize-winning dead salmon study (and subsequent studies that went looking for fishy things) comes this new study about Covid-19, cat images, and some limitations of technology:

“Can Your AI Differentiate Cats from Covid-19? Sample Efficient Uncertainty Estimation for Deep Learning Safety,” Ankur Mallick, Chaitanya Dwivedi, Bhavya Kailkhura, Gauri Joshi, and T. Yong-Jin Han, a paper presented at the ICML 2020 Workshop on Uncertainty and Robustness in Deep Learning. The authors, at Carnegie Mellon University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, explain:

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are known to make highly overconfident predictions on Out-of-Distribution data…. In this work, we show that even state-of-the-art BNNs and Ensemble models tend to make overconfident predictions when the amount of training data is insufficient….

We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed approach on a real-world application of COVID-19 diagnosis from chest X-Rays by (a) highlighting surprising failures of existing techniques, and (b) achieving superior uncertainty quantification as compared to state-of-the-art.

Today in Fluid Dynamics: “Can a Toilet Promote Virus Transmission?”

Pressure from the pandemic is bringing an urgent flow of partial information about the safety-or-danger of everyday activities. That flow brings us this new study:

“Can a Toilet Promote Virus Transmission? From a Fluid Dynamics Perspective Featured,” Yun-yun Li, Ji-Xiang Wang, and Xi Chen, Physics of Fluids, vol. 32, 2020, 065107.

The authors, at Southeast University, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, and Yangzhou University, China, report:

“It is clear from daily experience that flushing a toilet generates strong turbulence within the bowl. Will this flushing-induced turbulent flow expel aerosol particles containing viruses out of the bowl? This paper adopts computational fluid dynamics to explore and visualize the characteristics of fluid flow during toilet flushing and the influence of flushing on the spread of virus aerosol particles…. The simulation results are alarming in that massive upward transport of virus particles is observed, with 40%–60% of particles reaching above the toilet seat, leading to large-scale virus spread. Suggestions concerning safer toilet use and recommendations for a better toilet design are also provided.”

Cindy and Angel Explain the Ig Nobel Prizes

This is perhaps the most charming fan video we have ever seen about the Ig Nobel Prizes:

Mate Abundance and Engagement Ring Size and Cost Expectations [study]

“One growing area of research involves the study of engagement ring preferences, as a putative cue to male commitment to, and willingness to share resources with, the female recipient.”

– explain Ashley Locke, Jessica Desrochers, Danielle Lynch and Steven Arnocky of Nipissing University, Canada, in a 2019 publication of the Human Evolution Laboratory.

“We examined whether females primed with mate abundance versus scarcity exhibited differing expectations for an engagement ring purchased by a male proposer. Results showed that females primed with mate abundance expected a significantly larger and more expensive engagement ring relative to females primed with mate scarcity – a finding that held when controlling for age and current romantic relationship status.

This finding suggests that when females perceive mates to be abundant, they increase their expectation of cues to long-term male investment in a mateship.”

See: Induced Mate Abundance Increases Women’s Expectation for Engagement Ring Size and Cost

Research research by Martin Gardiner

Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown, Online, Symphonically

Some years ago I lent my copy of the the book Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown to jazz harpist / singer / composer Deborah Henson-Conant, musing that it might interest her. It interested her, so much so that Henson-Conant wrote a five-movement orchestral work, which she then performed with the Grand Rapids Symphony. A recording of that performance, called “Inventions and Alchemy,” was nominated for a Grammy award.

Video of that performance will have its online premiere on Friday, July 10, 2020. Registration to see it is free.

You can see, as well as hear, the composer demonstrate the engineering principles limned in bridge designer Charles Seim‘s essay “Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown”, which is the centerpiece of the book of that name.

“Stress Analysis” author Charles Seim gave his first public talk about the essay in February 2007, as a featured part of that year’s Improbable Research show at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Annual Meeting, held in San Francisco.

Pocket-Sized #1014: “Just A Sigh”

Just A Sigh

In this Pocket-Sized episode #1014, Marc Abrahams shows some unfamiliar research to Mason Porter. Dramatic readings and reactions ensues.

The research mentioned in this episode is featured in the special Mathematics issue (Vol. 16, #4) of the Annals of Improbable Research Magazine.

Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public.

1. Mason Porter encounters:

“Is a Sigh ‘Just a Sigh’? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task,” Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49-57.

“Take a Deep Breath: The Relief Effect of Spontaneous and Instructed Sighs,” Elke Vlemincx, Joachim Taelman, Ilse Van Diest, and Omer Van den Bergh, Physiology and Behavior, vol. 101, no. 1, August 4, 2010, pp. 67-73.

Seth Gliksman, Production Assistant

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Podcasts, AntennaPod, BeyondPod and elsewhere!

A question of smoked ham in goat

Non-specialists sometimes are confused by the titles of research papers. This study about goats is a particular problem for some non-goat readers:

“The impact of diet on the quality of fresh meat and smoked ham in goat,” Snezana Ivanovic, Ksenija Nesic, Boris Pisinov, and Ivan Pavlovic, Small Ruminant Research, vol. 138, May 2016, pp. 53-59. The authors are at the Institute of Veterinary Medicine of Serbia.