Podcast 41: Kansas is Flatter Than a Pancake (and water, and holes)

The discovery that Kansas is flatter than a pancake, comparative water preferences of female college students and rats, and deep thoughts about the shape of holes — all of these turn up in this week’s Improbable Research podcast.

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This week, Marc Abrahams tells about:

Kansas Is Flatter Than a Pancake. (“Kansas is Flatter Than a Pancake“, Mark Fonstad, William Pugatch, and Brandon Vogt, Annals of Improbable Research, vol 9, no. 3, May-June 2003, pp. 16-18. Featuring dramatic readings by Jean Berko Gleason.) Here are photos showing a pancake (on the left) and Kansas: 
Water Preferences of Female College Students and Rats. (Yukiko, Esumi, and Ohara Ikuo (1999). ‘Similar Preference for Natural Mineral Water between Female College Students and Rats.’ Journal of Home Economics of Japan 50 (12): 1217–22. / Lathan, C., and P. E. Fields (1936). ‘A Report on the Test-retest Performances of 38 College Students and 27 White Rats on the Identical 25 Choice Elevated Maze.’ Journal of Genetic Psychology 49: 283–96. Featuring dramatic readings by Daniel Rosenberg.) 
A Hole, in the Head. (Bertamini, Marco, and Camilla J. Croucher (2003). ‘The Shape of Holes.’ Cognition 87 (1): 33–54. / Lewis, David Kellogg, and Stephanie R. Lewis (1970). ‘Holes.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 48: 206-12; reprinted in Lewis, D. K. (1983). Philosophical Papers, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 3–9. / Norman, J. F., F. Phillips, and H. E. Ross (2001). ‘Information Concentration Along the Boundary Contours of Naturally Shaped Solid Objects.’ Perception 30: 1285–94. Featuring dramatic readings by Melissa Franklin.)

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).