Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 347

Pippa Middleton’s backside – the Freudian and Marxist interpretations

The scholarly community, a portion of it anyway, is diving ever-deeper in the analysis of the rear end of the sister of the wife of the man whose father’s mother sits on the throne of the United Kingdom.

The interest has spread westward, to the Republic of Ireland. Ireland has no monarch, and thus does not have a monarch’s child’s child’s spouse’s sibling’s butt of its own to analyse.

Gavin Wilkinson, who recently obtained a graduate degree from University College Dublin, wrote a treatise called Fetishising Pippa Middleton: Celebrity Posteriors, Whiteness and Class Aspirationalism….

—So begins the latest Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

CONTEXT: Here’s video of the object of the scholarly discussion:

BONUS: The Wilkinson paper extends the scholarly community’s attempt to grasp the essence of the Middleton buttocks.

Nominative Determinism: Speaks on sound

Another case of nominative determinism:

Charles E. Speaks wrote the textbook Introduction To Sound: Acoustics for the Hearing and Speech Sciences.

(Thanks to investigator Charles Oppenheim for bringing this to our attention.)

Halfdan Skjerning joins the Luxuriant FFF Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFFFHCfSS)

Halfdan Skjerning  has joined the Luxuriant Flowing, Former, or/and Facial Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFHCfSS). He says:

I study Health-Related Quality of Life in children and adolescents with celiac disease. I am fascinated by the resilience or stubbornness of the beard. When trimmed down, it keeps growing out again – it’s like it doesn’t learn, or maybe it has a will of its own. Equally intriguing are the reactions of other people towards the beard; some want to touch it and look upon it with envy, while others are intimidated by it. You can tell a lot about people from their reactions to beard.

Halfdan Skjerning, Ph.D, M.Sc. Psych., LFFFHCfSS

Psychologist

Hans Christian Andersen Children’s Hospital

University of Southern Denmark

Odense, Denmark

You and the dot-walker simulator

If you have hypotheses about dot-walkers, feel free to test them out with the Queen’s University Biomotion Lab dot-walker simulator:

Scientists let their hair down, welcome social scientists to the club

The joint membership committee of the The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS), the Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS), and the Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) is proud and pleased to sheepishly announce the creation of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists.

The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFHCfSS) was founded this month, February 2015, after the joint membership committee decided that they had been purely snooty in excluding social scientists from the clubs.

These are conjoined quadruplet clubs — members of each club are accorded full honorary privileges of the other clubs.

The members of all four clubs can and should be seen and admired online.

 

Stephen Goss joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFHCfSS)

Stephen Goss  has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFHCfSS). He says:

Dr Stephen Goss teaches post-qualification doctoral research in counselling, psychotherapy and related fields at the Metanoia Institute (Middlesex University) in London and is co-Editor (Counselling) of the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling. His specialist subjects include pluralist research methods, evaluation of mental health care, innovations in service delivery methods – particularly technological means of connecting practitioners and clients – and service development. His recent publications include Making Research Matter (in press 2015, Routledge). He has also published several books along with about 100 other things, including various guidelines for online counselling and psychotherapy.

Stephen Goss, Ph.D., MBACP, BA(Hons), LFHCfSS

Principal Lecturer, DPsych (Professional Studies) programme

Metanoia Institute

Middlesex University

London, UK

Amelie Stuart joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFHCfSS)

Amelie Stuart  has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists (LFHCfSS). She says:

I am currently writing my PhD thesis on global justice and Kantian ethics. I’ve been teaching, and working as a scientist for the past six years.

Amelie Stuart, MA, LFHCfSS

Research Assistant

Institut für Philosophie, Arbeitsbereich Praktische Philosophie

University of Graz

Graz, Austria

The jet powered maple seed (new patent)

In 1992, Litos et al. patented their bio-mimic throw-in-the-air toy called the ‘Autorotative Flyer’. It might not occur to everyone that the passive toy could be updated, and militarized, with the addition of a supersonic jet pack. But occur it did to high-tech weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Inc. which has just received a US patent for its Active Maple Seed Flyer.

The flying jet-seed, which can be used for transporting a miniature video camera for remote surveillance purposes, can also eject an (unspecified) ‘payload object’ on demand. The (unspecified) ‘payload object’ carries an adhesive causing it to stick to surfaces when it lands.

The remote-controlled, 10 gram, 3.5 cm long vehicle can fly for 20 minutes or so, and spins 250 times per second thanks to its supersonic jet thruster. Onboard (or offboard) electronics can de-spin the resulting images says the patent. For the convenience of the human-in-the-loop the seeds come in a blister-pack of 5 or more.

Bonus question: Is this the first time that a children’s toy has has been adapted to form a military device – rather than the other way around ?

Writing About Thinking of Speaking with the Dead

This study speaks volumes, but in an unusual way:

“Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased,” Arnaud Delorme, Julie Beischel, Leena Michel, Mark Boccuzzi, Dean Radin, and Paul J. Mills, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 4, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Estrella Burgos for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, CA, the University of California San Diego, and the Windbridge Institute, Tucson, AZ.

Co-author Radin is perhaps best known for an earlier study:

“Effects of Intentionally Enhanced Chocolate on Mood,” Dean Radin, Gail Hayssen and James Walsh, Explore, vol. 3, no. 5, September 2007,pp. 485-492. (Thanks to Mary Beckman for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and at Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate in Honolulu, Hawaii, explain:

“A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled experiment investigated whether chocolate exposed to “good intentions” would enhance mood more than unexposed chocolate…. The intention in each case was that people who ate the chocolate would experience an enhanced sense of energy, vigor, and wellbeing…. Each person consumed a half ounce of dark chocolate twice a day at prescribed times. Three groups blindly received chocolate that had been intentionally treated by three different techniques. The intention in each case was that people who ate the chocolate would experience an enhanced sense of energy, vigor, and well-being. The fourth group blindly received untreated chocolate as a placebo control….

“Conclusion: The mood-elevating properties of chocolate can be enhanced with intention.”

Improbable Research — AAAS in San Jose, Saturday Feb 14

Come to the annual Improbable Research Session at the AAAS Annual Meeting, in San Jose, California.

Saturday, February 14 (Valentine’s Day), 8:00 pm
Hilton San Jose Hotel, in the Almaden Ballroom
It’s open FREE to the public

Dr. Schwab at the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Photo: Kees Moeliker.

The show will include, in addition to me, rare appearances by:

Dr. Ivan Schwab , Ig Nobel Prize winner (for showing why woodpeckers don’t get headaches)
Gale and Don Sturtevant, nearest living relatives of George and Charlotte Blonsky, Ig Nobel Prize winners (for inventing a device – US Patent #3,216,423 – to aid women in giving birth — the woman is strapped onto a circular table, and the table is then rotated at high speed)
Dr. Anne Madden , 
Yoram Bauman , performing economist

The event always spills out the doors, so if you want a seat, get there a little early.

Please spread the word.

Here’s a glance at the patent for the Blonsky device:

BONUS NOTE TO BAY AREA JOURNALISTS: The Blonskys lived, in their final years, in the San Jose area, with the Sturtevants.

BONUS: Full schedule of Improbable Research events, including the March 2015 tour in the UK, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden. (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) Man of the Year Alex Dyson will appear at the Imperial College London show, on March 20.)