Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 288

Medieval names to beware of

If, for whatever reason, you want to compile a list of medieval names, a web site called :

People have lots of different reasons for compiling lists of names, and most of them don’t result in good sources for medieval names…. When you are faced with a name list, here are some signs that it is probably unreliable as a source of medieval names:

No dates.
No list of sources where the author found the names.
The title of the list includes the word baby.
There is a meaning given for every name.
Languages of origin are given with unscholarly terms like Teutonic or Celtic.
There is no variation in the spelling of names, i.e. every William is spelled the same.

Here is a list [only highlights of which appear below] of some websites that offer name lists that you should avoid if you are looking for medieval names…:

Kate Monk’s Onomastikon
Society of Kabalarians of Canada Baby Naming site




Scythian Vocabulary and Names [of which The Medieval Names Archive says: “We recommend against trusting this discussion at all. Other publications by some of the same authors have been thoroughly discredited.”]

 

New Mathematical Model Helps Explain the Strength of Interleaved Phonebooks

Phonebooks made of paper have been going out of style, but they are still of interest to physicists. A few years ago, an episode of Mythbusters explored the strength of interleaved phone books. (Also see the sequel in Mythbusters, or maybe even try it yourself.)

First, some context, in case you are a child of the 21st century, and so perhaps have no personal experience with paper telephone books, which could be hefty. Here’s an old TV advertisement for “the yellow pages”, a telephone directory listing businesses and their telephone numbers:

Now experiments and an accompanying mathematical model have been published in Physical Review Letters by a team of physicists. Frédéric Restagno of the University of Paris-Sud and CNRS in Orsay and his colleagues measured the force needed to separate interleaved pairs of books with between 12 and 100 pages, and they developed a mathematical model based on simple geometric and mechanical ideas to explain the impressive strength of interleaved books.

 

Figure 1 from the article “Self-Amplification of Solid Friction in Interleaved Assemblies” by Héctor Alarcón, Thomas Salez, Christophe Poulard, Jean-Francis Bloch, Élie Raphaël, Kari Dalnoki-Veress, and Frédéric Restagno

 

The strength of the interleaved books arises because the book-separating force on each page is applied at a slight angle, and this increases the perpendicular force and hence the friction of each page. Restagno and colleagues also fit the data to a curve of force versus a dimensionless amplification parameter –– following the continuum-mechanics tradition of using cute names for dimensionless parameters, let’s call it the “Hercules number” –– that depends on the number of pages, the page thickness, and the size of the overlap region between the books.

Not very closely related: Another fascinating dimensionless parameter is the “Repunzel number” from research on ponytail physics, which earned the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics.

Profile: ‘International Journal of Smart Home’

The ‘International Journal of Smart Home’ (a publication of SERSC: (Science & Engineering Research Support soCiety)

“- is intended to foster the dissemination of state-of-the-art research in the area of SHE [Smart Home Environment] including business models, security services, and novel applications associated with its utilization.”

For a sample paper, can we recommend : ‘The Analysis of the Comical Factors of ‘Olaf’ the Snowman in Frozen – Based on the Laughter Theory of Henri Bergson’ International Journal of Smart Home, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2015).

Using an MRI scanner as a guitar amp and speakers

Dr Donald McRobbie, who is director and head of magnetic resonance physics at the Radiological Sciences Unit of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, UK, is one of the few, perhaps the only, researcher(s) to have plugged an electric guitar into an MRI scanner and used the scanner as amp and speakers. Improbable has been unable to obtain further information regarding the technical methodology of the procedure, nevertheless, here are details from his website:

“Most bizarre thing done with a guitar: I am the only person to plug a guitar into an MRI scanner and use the scanner as amp and speakers. I performed the scanner song ‘Shimming’ at a scientific conference in the Honolulu Convention Centre.

(Click here to listen) May take a bit of time to load (its just over 1mb) but worth hearing.”

Also see: Playing a cello (inside an MRI scanner)

Safety note:  Don’t try this at home (if you have an MRI scanner at home) without first obtaining safety advice from an expert.

 

Sneezing, mustache wax, and a full stomach [Podcast 45]

Sneezing from a full stomach, medical hazards of mustache wax,  an otorhinolaryngologist, and the international diplomacy of using porcine parts to teach surgery— these all turn up in this week’s Improbable Research podcast.

SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free.

This week, Marc Abrahams  —with dramatic readings by Melissa Franklin — tells about:

Sneezing provoked by a full stomach. (“Autosomnal Dominant Sneezing Disorder Provoked by Fullness of the Stomach,” A.S. Teebi and Q.A. Al-Saleh, Journal of Medical Genetics, vol. 26 , 1989 , pp. 539-40.)
Medical hazards of mustache wax. (“An Unusual Finding on Routine Dental Pan-Oral Tomography,” S. Lloyd, V.R. Talati, and J.P. Ward, British Dental Journal, vol. 176, no. 4, February 19, 1994, pp. 144-6.)
Adventures — well, one adventure — of an otorhinolaryngologist. (“Perioral Dermatitis Secondary to the Use of a Corticosteroid Ointment as Mustache Wax,” E.K. Edwards Jr. and E.K. Edwards Sr., International Journal of Dermatology, vol. 26, no. 10, December 1987, p. 649.)
The international diplomacy of using porcine parts to teach surgery. (“Islam, Teaching Dermatologic Surgery, and Porcine Parts,” Lawrence M. Field, Dermatologic Surgery, vol. 27, no. 6, June 2001, pp. 608-9.)

The mysterious John Schedler or the shadowy Bruce Petschek perhaps did the sound engineering this week.

The Improbable Research podcast is all about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — real research, about anything and everything, from everywhere —research that may be good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless. CBS distributes it, on the CBS Play.it web site, and on iTunes and Spotify).

A newish old advance in false eyelash complexity

2007 is a long time ago, by some people’s reckoning. Thus we can say this eyelash invention is an oldish idea:

“FALSE EYELASHES WITH A PLURALITY OF SUBASSEMBLIES,”

European Patent Application EP2026671

Inventor: Byrne, Alexsandra (London, GB)

Application Number: EP20070732980

Publication Date: 02/25/2009

Filing Date: 05/25/2007

“An eyelash adornment 1 comprises a plurality of lash elements 2, 3, 4. The lash elements 2, 3, 4 are adapted to be arranged together on the edge of an eyelid and each comprises a respective mounting portion 5 provided with a series of lash filaments extending therefrom 7. The eyelash adornment 1 is characterised in that a first said lash element 2, 3, 4 is adapted to be visually different from a second said lash element 2, 3, 4 in use and/or it is adapted to cause a visual effect in a natural eyelash situated on the said eyelid which is different from that caused by the said second lash element in use. An eyelash adornment kit, system and fitting method are also disclosed.”

Riddle and Tribble on Military Diarrhea

Military life is not all glory, Riddle and Tribble and colleagues remind us in this study:

“Military importance of diarrhea: lessons from the Middle East,” John W. Sanders, Shannon D. Putnam, Mark S. Riddle, and David R. Tribble, Current Opinion in Gastroenterology, vol. 21, 2005, pp. 9–14. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors report:

“Historically, the most common medical problem faced by deployed military troops has been diarrhea… To assess the impact of diarrhea on operational effectiveness, soldiers who were systematically selected from around Iraq and Afghanistan to participate in the rest and recuperation program at Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar, were asked to complete a questionnaire…. Despite modern preventive medicine efforts, diarrhea rates remain high, and the impact of illness remains a threat to military efficiency.”

Detail from the study:

BONUS:  The 2004 Ig Nobel Prize for biology was awarded to W. Brian Sweeney, Brian Krafte-Jacobs, Jeffrey W. Britton, and Wayne Hansen, for their breakthrough study, “The Constipated Serviceman: Prevalence Among Deployed US Troops,” and especially for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency. [Published in Military Medicine, vol. 158, August, 1993, pp. 346-348.]

Mr. Sparks’ predator-intimidating walking stick (new patent)

“Disclosed herein is an apparatus for deterring predators, which may be used as a walking stick until a predator is encountered. Upon encountering a predator, the apparatus allows a user to rapidly deploy a collapsible rigid structure from the interior of the hollow walking stick, which supports a membrane, or set of membranes, that display the image of a fearsome creature.“

The description is from a new (Nov. 24, 2015) US patent assigned to inventor James Sparks of Georgetown, Texas for his Predator-intimidating walking stick. The methodology of its operation can be appreciated by the following drawings from the patent, which, in a temporary departure from out normal format, we present in a pictorial narrative style.

Fig 1 While hiking, a walker encounters a predator – in this case a bear-like animal.

Fig 2 The bear becomes angry – whereupon the walker begins deployment by unfurling an image of a fearsome creature.

Fig 3 The fearsome creature image.

Fig 4 The bear, unnerved, slopes away.

Fig 5 As may sometimes happen, the bear returns, even more angrily. The staff, which has now been fitted with its pike-like extension, is positioned.

Fig 6 The bear is impaled

The end [i.e. the patent doesn’t go into detail as to what happens next]

If you’d like to read a description of the invention in a one-sentence format (as is sometimes preferred by patent attorneys) here it is, around 492 words long:

“An apparatus for deterring predators, said apparatus comprising: a hollow tube, said hollow tube comprising a top latch lock ring with a plurality of guide holes, a bottom latch lock ring, and a top opening; an end cap, said end cap being capable of fitting into said top opening in a tight manner; a sliding actuating collar, which is slidably fitted to the exterior of said hollow tube, said sliding actuating collar comprising: a top latch and a plurality of bottom latches; an internally-housed sliding insert that is controlled by said sliding actuating collar using a plurality of cables, said cables being attached to said internally-housed sliding insert, threaded through said plurality of guide holes in said top latch ring and attached to said sliding actuating collar; a vertical support rod, which distends from said internally-housed sliding insert, said vertical support rod comprising a sharpened point; two horizontal support rods, said horizontal support rods attaching to said internally-housed sliding insert with a hinge and said horizontal support rods comprising an unfurling shelf; a sheet set comprising two upper sheets, said upper sheets being connected between said vertical support rod and said horizontal support rods, and two lower sheets, said lower sheets being attached to said horizontal support rods and said lower sheets comprising weighted ends; a removable restraining strap; and a large fearsome creature image, said large fearsome creature image being displayed on said sheet set; wherein, before deployment, said apparatus appears and functions an ordinary walking stick with said internally-housed sliding insert stored at the bottom of said hollow tube, said sheet set folded and rolled in a compact manner and held in place by said removable restraining strap and said unfurling shelf so as to fit inside said hollow tube, said vertical support rod concealed within said hollow tube, said horizontal support rods held in a vertical position so that they are stored within the hollow tube, said sliding actuating collar positioned at the top of said hollow tube and fixed in place by said top latch holding said top latch ring, and said end cap firmly closing said top opening; and wherein, upon encountering a predator, a user may deter said predator by disengaging said top latch from said top latch ring and sliding said sliding actuating collar down the exterior of said hollow tube, thus bringing said internally-housed sliding insert up to said top opening of said hollow tube, extending said vertical support rod with said sharpened point above said hollow tube, releasing said removable restraining strap, allowing said horizontal support rods to drop to horizontal positions and stretch said two upper sheets taut between said vertical support rod and said horizontal support rods, and unfurling said two lower sheets, thereby exposing said sheet set with said large fearsome creature image to said predator; and wherein said user may use said apparatus with said extended vertical support rod with said sharpened point as an offensive or defensive pike. “

Chia Pets, the Next Generation: Edible Hot Dogs

A new research study about hot dogs conjures memories of the once-popular Chia Pets:

“Strategies for incorporation of chia (Salvia hispanica L.) in frankfurters as a health-promoting ingredient,” T. Pintado, A.M. Herrero, F. Jiménez-Colmenero, C. Ruiz-Capillas, Meat Science, epub December 19, 2015. The authors are at the Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition (ICTAN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain.

Jocular mockery (and mock impoliteness)

If someone Tweeted that you had a “face like monkfish genitalia” would you phone your legal team? Or LOL and tell everyone about it? [* see note below] That could depend on your enthusiasm (or otherwise) for ‘Jocular Mockery’.

Which, along with its close cousin ‘Mock Impoliteness’ is examined by Professor Michael Haugh (of the School of Languages and Linguistics at Griffith University, Australia) and Dr. Derek Bousfield (Head of Department, Language, Lingistics and TESOL at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) in their paper: ‘Mock impoliteness, jocular mockery and jocular abuse in Australian and British English’.

“It is argued that jocular mockery and jocular abuse very often occasion evaluations of mock impoliteness, that is evaluations of potentially impolite behaviour as non-impolite, rather than politeness or impoliteness per se, and that these evaluations arise from a shared ethos that places value on ‘not taking yourself too seriously’. It is also suggested such evaluations are cumulative and differentially distributed in multi-party interactions. For these reasons we suggest the mock impoliteness constitutes an [sic] social evaluation in its [own?] right rather than constituting [a?] subsidiary form of either politeness or impoliteness.”

* Note: The 2010 ‘monkfish genitalia’ Tweet [which we should like to make clear is not cited in the paper] referred to UK food critic, writer, journalist, TV presenter and jazz pianist Jay Rayner, who, as a keen supporter of Jocular Mockery, joyfully reprinted it in his book ‘My Dining Hell (Penguin Specials): Twenty Ways To Have a Lousy Night Out’