Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 430

Neil Martin joins Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)

Neil Martin has joined the Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). He says:

It is one of my life’s greatest achievements, even more than being able to unscrew jar tops successfully for ladies, to be admitted to the Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists. This photograph was taken circa 1985. At this point I was in the 6th form, had probably just been suspended with a chum for writing a scurrilous magazine, and had this taken by a friend who’s dad was a photographer. You can see incipient, inchoate signs of a budding career in science from the bowtie. Also, the alcohol. You can see more recent trichology here. I am not letting the Club down. I will be a worthy member.

Dr G Neil Martin, MA, PhD, FRSA, MBPsS, LFHCfS

Formerly, Director Human Olfaction Laboratory & Reader, Middlesex University, UK

Currently, Associate Member, Business Psychology Group, UCL, UK, & Consultant

UK

Case report: Big guy dies

A Case of Polysarcia, reported by in the Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal (November 1861), volume I(4):114-115:

Richard Holmes, colored, a cook, aged 41 years, was admitted into the Utica City Hospital on the 14th of August, 1861, suffering from polysarcia, of which he died September 3d, 1861. He was 5 1/2 feet high, weighed about 350 pounds; and measured in circumference 4 feet 10 inches, other portions of his body were in equal proportion. For 14 years he clothed himself in female apparel.

5’6″ and 350 pounds is pretty big. That’s a BMI of 56. We don’t know how common that is today, since statistics are only grouped into “overweight”, “obese”, and “morbidly obese” (BMI>40). But it happens.

Utica is in Oneida County, New York. According to the State Department of Health, as of 2010-2012, 25.7% of adults in the county are obese. African-Americans like Richard Holmes are more likely to be obese, according to the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey. To be in his situation, where he could lose 100 pounds and still have a BMI of 40 … still not common.

But either way, in 2014 a man of 41 dying of “polysarcia” (which just means morbid obesity), who has apparently been polysarcic for most of his adult life (“For 14 years he clothed himself in female apparel”), wouldn’t merit a special report in a medical journal.

And it would certainly not get picked up by today’s British Medical Journal.

But there he is, in the “Progress of Medical Science” section of the February 8, 1862 issue (subscription required, apparently, though it’s in the public domain). Right between Mr. H.T. Higginson’s “Easy Mode of Applying Leeches”, and the dispatch from Philadelphia about Dr. Nebinger’s theory of puerperal convulsions.

 

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Josephine A. Beck joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)

Josephine A. Beck  has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). She says:

Since I started in chemistry I’ve worked in industrial chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. From bubbling bench work to analytical instrumentation, I’ve loved every minute. The hardest part was always having to tie up my hair and sometimes contain it in a bouffant bonnet. This picture was taken after I gave 27″ of my hair to “Locks of Love“, the rest is in my will for them.

Josephine A. Beck, LFHCfS

Chemist since 1972, currently retired

Senior Chemist – Organon USA, West Orange, NJ (23 years)

Analyst – Becton Dickinson (3 years)

USA

Whisking in a batty 12-tone wonderland with Vi Hart

Have you ever wondered about the layers of meaning that come into play when someone writes, performs, or hears modern 12-tone music? Or the layers of meaning that some people imagine? Or the layers of meaning that other people suspect those other other people are only imagining?

Vi Hart went a-wondering. She made this video to whisk you along. The journey involves many things—among them Stravinsky, an owl, a pussycat, a bat, and copyright law:

 

The Mysterious Case of the Loaded Leprechaun

“The [Loaded] Leprechaun has been owned and operated as a private company since its founding in 1948 by the O’Shaughnessy family of Boston, MA. One of the great traditions at the Leprechaun is the ‘Dollar Holler.’ Patrons personalize dollar bills by writing a message or drawing a picture with a permanent marker and then staple the dollar to the ceiling, wall, banister, or any other available surface in the restaurant (see Figure 1).”

As sometimes happens, activities which seem on the surface to be just a bit o’ fun, can have wider implications. Suppose, just suppose, you were to visit such an Irish-themed restaurant and decided to participate in their ‘Dollar Holler’ scheme – some taxing questions might be raised:

● Would it just be a harmless shenanigan, or might you be committing a crime by ‘defacing’ the notes?

● Would the restaurant have a duty to accurately report receipt of the notes in their accounts? If so, how?

These questions and more are examined in detail in a recent paper for the journal Issues in Accounting Education, (November 2013, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 975-978.) authored by no fewer than 4 (four) professors from Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, US.

‘The Mysterious Case of the Loaded Leprechaun’ by professor Kerry K. Inger, professor James H. Long, professor Tina M. Loraas, and professor Jonathan D. Stanley quantifies the substantial proportions of the phenomenon by pointing out that :

“[...] the O’Shaughnessy family estimates that the average restaurant has accumulated more than $1 million in personalized dollar bills.”

Regarding the questions above, Professor Inger has very kindly clarified some points for Improbable.

“Section 333 of Title 18 of the US Code focuses on defacement with the intent to render a bill ‘unfit to be reissued’, generally applying to altering the bill’s serial number or denomination. According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a bill remains legal tender as long as it is not considered mutilated.

Based on U.S. tax law we concluded that the restaurant would have to pay income tax under the constructive receipt doctrine as well as other primary sources, and this is the approach that McGuire’s takes. Interestingly, an IRS field agent told us that the dollar bills in this situation would be treated as a gift and therefore, would not be subject to income tax. We think this makes a great learning point in class that many times tax research does not yield an unequivocally correct answer. (Can you tell I am a tax professor!)”

Also see: ‘Killer Whales – the tax implications of’

Spoiler alert: Those who fancy a spot of shenanigans at the Loaded Leprechaun may have difficulty in locating the restaurant. The paper is presented as a case study to be assigned to accounting students and, like Leprechauns themselves, the restaurant’s existence may not be 100% reality-based.

Ant men who really love their mother

This half-century-old song by Tom Lehrer seems—save for its failure to mention ants—to anticipate a study published this month about ants:

“Virgin ant queens mate with their own sons to avoid failure at colony foundation,” Christine Vanessa Schmidt [pictured here], Sabine Frohschammer, Alexandra Schrempf, Jürgen Heinze, Naturwissenschaften, vol. 101, no. 1, January 2014, pp 69-72. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Universität Regensburg, Germany, explain:

“Mother–son mating (oedipal mating) is practically non-existent in social Hymenoptera, as queens typically avoid inbreeding, mate only early in life and do not mate again after having begun to lay eggs. In the ant genus mating occurs among sib in the natal nests. Sex ratios are extremely female-biased and young queens face the risk of remaining without mating partners. Here, we show that virgin queens of Cardiocondyla argyrotricha produce sons from their own unfertilized eggs and later mate with them to produce female offspring from fertilized eggs. Oedipal mating may allow C. argyrotricha queens to found new colonies when no mating partners are available and thus maintains their unusual life history combining monogyny, mating in the nest, and low male production.”

The Star Trek Symposium in Malta

Investigator Gwinyai Masakume reminds us about an upcoming (July 10-11, 2014) academic event in Malta. The organizers say:

The first Star Trek academic symposium. This is an event that differs from the traditional Fan-Based Convention in that it is a platform for academics from across many disciplines to meet and explore the intersection of humanities and sciences. It will be an academic meeting, with the presentation of scholarly papers that will explore the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. The event will be held under the auspices of HUMS  a programme at the University of Malta that has been set up to explore and encourage the interfaces between the humanities, medicine and the sciences, and aims to facilitate and disseminate cross-disciplinary research. The Star Trek Symposium is the first of its kind and will be held on the beautiful, ancient Island of Malta. This is an event that will appeal to scientists and fans of StarTrek alike.

Professor Victor Grech MD, PhD (Malta), PhD (Lond.), FRCPCH, MRCP(UK), DCH, Associate Professor of Paediatrics, at the University of Malta, is one of the main organizers. He is the very same Professor Victor Grech MD, PhD (Malta), PhD (Lond.), FRCPCH, MRCP(UK), DCH, Associate Professor of Paediatrics who wrote the paper “Infertility in Star Trek”.

 

 

 

Accounting for accommodation in a one-legged two-eared eared grebe

The title of this study says “grebes” [plural], but the story involves a single grebe [singular]. That single grebe does, as the title implies, have a single [one] leg:

“Ecological Constraints and Phenotypic Accommodation in One-legged Eared Grebes,” Joseph R. Jehl Jr., The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 125(4), 2013, pp. 829-832. (Thanks to investigator Adrian Smith for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at the Division of Birds, U.S. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, reports:

“An Eared Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) that lost a leg in an accident increased muscle mass in its intact leg by 28%. This allowed it to forage, run along the surface to take flight, and survive for about a year before dying in a weather-induced downing. Its ultimate survival probably depended on the species’ predilection for hypersaline habitats, where passive invertebrates are abundant and can be captured easily on the surface without the need to dive. Similar phenotypic accommodation may have been realized in other similarly impaired Eared Grebes. However, it seems unlikely to be achieved in other grebe species, particularly fish-eating pursuit divers, which require two intact legs and feet for propulsion and underwater maneuverability.”

The slow rise of cogno-intellectualism

More than a decade ago, the Everything2 web site looked back at the slow rise of the word “cogno-intellectual“.

The word originated here, in the December 1997 issue of mini-AIR.

The patent blossoming of artificial cauliflower ears for fight fans

In the spirit of making-lemons-into-lemonade, a few individuals have realised that, when life produces cauliflower ears, it might also be coaxed to produce customers who will pay money for replicas of cauliflower ears. A patent application (US 20130326793 [a detail from it is pictured here]) describes the fruit of their ingenuity: “An apparatus and method for wearing replica ‘cauliflower’ ears which are moulded from the actual cauliflower ears of athletes [in] contact sports including mixed martial arts (MMA), wrestling, rugby, boxing.”

The patent explains: “Cauliflower ears are often unique and distinctive for each athlete, and are often considered by the athletes and fans as badges of honour.” The aim is to supply the extra-pulpy artificial ears as adornments for enthusiasts who, though eager, could not or would not sport self-grown, fisticuff-generated cauliflower ears….

—So begins this month’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

BONUS: The photo below shows “fan photos” displayed by a California company called Dedicated Few, which offers the ears for sale:

BONUS: A video report by Hawaii News Now about genuine cauliflower ears on mixed martial fighters:

BONUS: Historic video of the band Radioactive Cauliflower, which hails from a California town near the listed home town of the individuals who have applied for the patent for artificial cauliflower ears :