Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 354

“Beware The Man of One Study”

The Slate Star Codex blog has a curious essay called “Beware The Man of One Study“. Here’s how it begins:

Aquinas famously said: beware the man of one book. I would add: beware the man of one study.

For example, take medical research. Suppose a certain drug is weakly effective against a certain disease. After a few years, a bunch of different research groups have gotten their hands on it and done all sorts of different studies. In the best case scenario the average study will find the true result – that it’s weakly effective.

But there will also be random noise caused by inevitable variation and by some of the experiments being better quality than others. In the end, we might expect something looking kind of like a bell curve. The peak will be at “weakly effective”, but there will be a few studies to either side. Something like this:

Fat Cats Disambiguation (tubby tabbies, or….?)

To (very loosely) paraphrase Murphy’s law :

 “If there’s a chance that something might be misunderstood, someone will come along and misunderstand it.”

That’s exactly what happened when Improbable came across a 2010 paper in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, entitled : ‘Novel dietary strategies can improve the outcome of weight loss programmes in obese client-owned cats’ A careful reading of the paper, however, revealed that it’s about cats which are obese, rather than cats with obese owners. But then another sentence jumped out:

“A total of 86 selected cats were identified during initial screening; two cats were recruited through the database, whilst the remaining 84 cats were recruited through the newspaper advertisements.”

– which is to say, Improbable believes, that the owners were recruited, not the cats. Improbable also noted that the study was funded by Royal Canin, the name of which might suggest to some that it manufactures dogfood – and it does – but Improbable finds that it also makes cat food. Royal Canin is owned by Mars Inc., a company which takes an interest in combating the escalating (human) obesity epidemic – it recently dropped its King Sized Snickers. Perhaps there’s still room for yet another misunderstanding though, because their commercial website, for distributors, not only continues to announce King Size Snickers® but also King Size Milky Way®, King Size Twix® and King Size M&M’s® Peanut Chocolate Candies.

Also see: Acute effects of a deep-fried Mars bar on brain vasculature

Corbin Covault joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)

Corbin Covault has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). He says:

I, Corbin Covault, am an experimental physicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.  I study the highest energy cosmic rays arriving to Earth from outer space, and wonder where they come from.  I categorically deny all rumors that I can speak fluent Klingon.

Corbin Covault, LFHCfS [Click on the image. below, to see an enlarged version.]

Professor and Associate Chair

Physics Department

Case Western Reserve University

Cleveland Ohio, USA

Not Its Crowning Glory: Regulating Anti-Hair-Loss Products

Some years ago, a law student looked at US government attempts to regulate products that claimed to prevent hair from vanishing. The student — who retained his own head of hair and later became a law professor — wrote this paper:

“Not Its Crowning Glory: Obstacles for FDA in Regulating Ingested Dietary Supplements Purporting to Prevent Hair Loss,” Andrew Bradt [pictured here], 2005 Third Year Paper, Harvard Law School. The author explains:

Preventing hair loss is big business in the United States, amounting to over one billion dollars per year. While the industry is dominated by FDA-approved medications, like Propecia and Rogaine and hair transplant surgeries, there are also a variety of herbal remedies on the market with no proof of effectiveness. These products are allowed to exist and to claim to regrow hair or prevent future hair loss thanks to the provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or DSHEA. This article examines how DSHEA allows these products to remain on the market, potentially defrauding millions of vulnerable Americans seeking to respond to baldness, and offers several possible solutions to the problem.

Patient: Doctor, doctor, can you give me something for my baldness?

Doctor: How about a few pounds of pig manure?

Patient: Will that cure my baldness?

Doctor: No, but with that on your head no one will come near enough to notice you’re bald.

–Old Joke

A super, super slo-mo video look at the snapping of a spaghetti strand

Destin, the star of the SmarterEveryDay video series, takes a very, very slow motion look at the spaghetti-breaking oddity that led to an Ig Nobel Prize in physics:

The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces. [REFERENCE: “Fragmentation of Rods by Cascading Cracks: Why Spaghetti Does Not Break in Half,” Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch, Physical Review Letters, vol. 95, no. 9, August 26, 2005, pp. 95505-1 to 95505-1.]

A 1912 Olympic shooting mystery math/physics quiz

This week’s math/physics essay quiz is to explain the math and physics underlying these “INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE OFFICIALS AND COMPETITORS AT THE SHOOTING COMPETITIONS” from  THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF STOCKHOLM 1912, ISSUED BY THE SWEDISH OLYMPIC COMMITTEE. Here is the relevant passage:

In addition to the rules and regulations already issued, and with ‘which each competitor must be acquainted before the shooting begins, the following rules shall also be in force.

1. The competitor must not be credited with any point at all (= o) for a shot that hits a target belonging to another nation or to any other competitor.

2. If on the target of a competitor there is found, on marking, one hit more than he has fired shots, the said competitor shall reckon the best hit, but only on the supposition that the competitor himself has not fired more than one shot; should he have fired more than one shot, he may only reckon the lowest hits.

3. If on the target or figure of a competitor there is found, on marking, two or more hits than he has fired shots, the competitor must fire the series again.

LINKS:

(Large) PDF of the entire report.

(Much smaller) Text thereof.

 

Join us, improbably, at the Vienna Science Ball on January 31

An invitation to you — yes, you! —  from Vienna, Austria:

Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,

For the first time, the City of Vienna is staging the Vienna Science Ball. On Saturday, 31 January 2015, Vienna’s City Hall will be turned into a festive venue for the city’s science and research community. In a city renown for its 450 spectacular events in carnival the Vienna Science Ball adds a distinct sensation of entertainment with an attitude to the annual ball season. 

The ball is supported, among many others, by the Federal Minister for Science, Research and Economy and the Mayor of Vienna who happens to be a trained biologist. One of the supporters from abroad is Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, and founder of the Lauder Business School based in Vienna. You can find his message online.

Subscribers of the Annals of Improbable Research and friends of the Ig Noble Prizes can – for a limited period of time –  make use of a special offer. Regular tickets can be purchased at bulk sale conditions: get 5 tickets for the price of 4 or 10 tickets for the price of 8 (€ 64 each instead of € 80). Simply mail the five (or ten) names of your group adding a postal address to one name for mailing the invoice and the tickets until January 9 to <karten@wissenschaftsball.at>. Boxes and tables (including 8 tickets each) can be booked directly. You can book at  a 10% discount by sending email to that same address: <karten@wissenschaftsball.at>. 

In addition, our official carrier Austrian Airlines offers a special ball discount. Our partner Hotel Rathauspark has similar discounts.   

The Vienna Science Ball represents Vienna’s science and research community in its excellence and diversity. Typical elements of a Viennese Ball are combined with contributions from Vienna’s universities. International visibility and recognition is secured through the presence of global stars of popular science communication like Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of Annals of Improbable Research, and originator and emcee of the annual Ig Nobel Prize celebration.

Come and join the scientifically approved fun! Here is the evening’s program:

20:00 Ballroom:
Inlet

21:00 Ballroom:
Collection and Polonaise of young ladies and gentlemen Committee

21:10 Ballroom:
Festive Overture, Op 96 by Dimitri Shostakovich, played bykons.wien.sinfonieorchester the  Vienna Conservatory  

21:20 Ballroom:
Welcoming the guests of honor and opening by Mayor Michael Häupl

21:30 Ballroom:
“Alles Walzer” – The young ladies and gentlemen Committee:  The Viennese Ball Orchestra under the direction of Prof. Wolfgang Ortner

21:30 North buffet:
Beginning at the roulette table of Casinos Austria

21:30 Discothèque:
The Wickie, Slime and Paiper clubbing with star DJ as a surprise guest

00:00 Ballroom:
Midnight interlude – Overture “Candide” by Leonard Bernstein, played by  kons.wien.sinfonieorchester  the Vienna Conservatory 

24/7 Lecture “Vienna’s scientists and Their impact on the world!” By Marc Abrahams, mastermind of the Ig Nobel Prize

00:20 Ballroom:
Midnight Quadrille

12:40 Ballroom:
Fred Schreiber & The Great Conspiracy:  Schlager Advanced – Swing for couples

12:40 Discothèque:
The Wickie, Slime and Paiper Clubbing

01:30 Ballroom:
Dancing till the early morning:  The Viennese Ball Orchestra  under the direction of Prof. Wolfgang Ortner

04:00:
Ball end

The year 2014 in hair (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Clubs for Scientists — LFHCfS)

The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists has a new member gallery with details on all the new members inducted during the year 2014.

The 2014 Membership Gallery covers all 3 of the (conjoined triplet) hair clubs: The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, The Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists, and the Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists.

Much, or at least some, additional hair club news from 2014 — such as Brian May’s work to revive stereoscopic photography, and the Danish magazine article about the hair club, and even the ratio of male to female club members — is available in the LFHCfS category of the Improbable Blog.

  Find LFHCfS members Jensen, Martin, Beck, and Graur are among the new members whose virtual presence and hair grace the 2014 membership gallery

COMING ANNOUNCEMENT: In randomly chosen years, the LFHCfS chooses a Woman and Man of the Year. This year — 2014 — is one of those years. A few days from now, we will announce the the 2014 LFHCfS Man and Woman of the Year. Please prepare your emotions.

Find past members, and how the club began, on the LFHCfS mainpage.

‘Dog Stories’ (their value for journalists)

How can professional journalists draw public attention to important news stories? A team of investigators from the University of California and the University of Miami have a word of advice. And the word is ‘Dogs’.

Their findings are published in PS: Political Science & Politics, (Volume 47, Issue 04, October 2014, pp 819-823) under the title ‘What’s a Dog Story Worth?’. Over a twelve year period, the team examined the national news agendas of ten regional newspapers in relation to that of The New York Times.

The study concludes that :

“For comparative purposes, our estimates suggest that a dog story on the last page of the NYT national news report proliferates at 2.2 times the rate a non-dog NYT article on the same page. By comparison, a story that makes the front page of the NYT is also covered by other papers at 2.2 times the rate that a story published on the last page of the NYT national news report. In other words, having a canine subject in a national news event produces coverage of the story that is almost as big as the effect of the difference between being NYT front page worthy and NYT back page worthy.”

The paper can be read in full via professor Matthew D. Atkinson’s website ThePriceOfTea.com

Note: A Dachshund, as pictured above, is, (according to the late American journalist and satirist Henry Louis “H. L.” Mencken) “A half-a-dog high and a dog-and-a-half long.”

Salmon’s And the Meaning of Must

Practically speaking, one must perhaps at some point confront the meaning of the word “must.” Salmon had done so. His study on the matter is:

“Conventional Implicature, Presupposition, and the Meaning of Must,” William Salmon [pictured here], Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 43, no. 14, November 2011, pp. 3416-3430. The author is at the  University of British Columbia, Canada.

BONUS: Note that the Journal of Pragmatics finds it practical to use page numbering that goes into the thousands.