This is Improbable Too - Synchronized Cows, Speedy Brain Extractors and More WTF Research

by Marc Abrahams

The mind behind the infamous Ig Nobel Prizes presents an addictive collection of improbable research all about us – and you.

Marc Abrahams collects the odd, the imaginative and the brilliantly improbable. Here he turns to research on the ins and outs of the very improbable evolutionary innovation that is the human body (brain included):

• What’s the best way to get a monkey to floss regularly?

• How much dandruff do Pakistani soldiers have?

• If you add an extra henchman to your bank-robbing gang, how much more money will you 'earn'?

• How many dimples will be found on the cheeks of 28,282 Greek children?

• Who is the Einstein of pork carcasses?

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Humor

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2014

About the author

Marc Abrahams writes the 'Improbable Research' column for the Guardian and is the author of 'This Is Improbable'. He is the founding editor of the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research and founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are presented at Harvard University each year. Abrahams and the Ig have been covered by the BBC, New Scientist, Daily Mail, Times, and numerous other outlets internationally. He lives in Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The apparent concept behind this book is excellent, and if read in small snippets, some of the individual stories are fascinating.
Unfortunately, the writing style is very dry, and some of what seem like the most interesting research paper titles are left unexplained, like "Harry Potter and the Recessive Allele," or "Images of Madness in the Films of Walt Disney."
Don't make the mistake of trying to read this straight through. Read a few anecdotes and then put it down. Otherwise, your brain will saturate and begin to reject the overload of weird research...much of which has actual applications, by the way. Unlike the flippant way Abrahams treats the topic, the concept of growing thin layers of grapheme as described, combined with more recent research on grapheme combining with spider silk, means you could create Spider-Man's webbing with things you find at home...or you could, if the paper on grapheme was more complete.

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t usually write reviews, but this book is getting some undue bad press, so I’d like to offer a different perspective.

Unless reading scientific papers is part of your career, this book is probably not for you. It’s essentially abstracts and conclusions of weird research. The humor is absolutely fantastic, but it’s written much like a paper, so I could see how people wouldn’t enjoy it if that wasn’t something they did on the regular.

Probably my biggest gripe is that I needed the way back machine to read some of the papers mentioned.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review, so here we go... It is a strange but interesting compilation of science humour from the Annals of Improbable research. Not really my kind of book but i appreciate the weirdness and humour.

[Christian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Mostly mildly amusing research, some even got quite interesting and funny, DNF about 60% of the way through as the format got a bit tedious.

[Angela Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not funny, not well presented

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A roundup of weird research! I got a chuckle out of what some people choose to spend their time studying.

[Julie lit pour les autres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cette collection d'articles scientifiques drôlatiques et parfois fumeux est le résultat du travail du fondateur des prix Ig Nobels. L'auteur fouille les journaux scientifiques à la recherche de ces articles qui font rigoler à prime abord et qui font (parfois) réfléchir. Certains titres cités sont d'ailleurs des petites merveilles d'absurdité.

Ce recueil est divertissant. J'en ai appris plus que je ne l'aurais cru sur la statistique de la promotion en milieu professionnel (selon des chercheurs italiens, une entreprise a plus de chances d'être efficace si elle attribue les promotions au hasard!), sur un nouveau genre d'épouvantail breveté (un faux chat en rotation autour d'un axe), et sur lien surprenant entre la circoncision et la recherche sur la lotion solaire. Certaines recherches partent du champ gauche, mais ont des conclusions si stupéfiantes qu'elles changent les perceptions des chercheurs.

Les lecteurs qui aiment bien les magazines du type Mental Floss et les anecdotes se feront un plaisir de se plonger dans ce livre.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Received for free through Goodreads' First Reads.

I didn't actually finish the book. I think I got to page 10 and gave up, which I very rarely do. If I could give 0 stars I would.

Granted, some of it is interesting. But the presentation and writing style completely negate that.

The front cover looks fun and interesting and maybe a little wacky. Inside it's all business, long words and footnotes.

There are too many different topics covered, so just as you get interested in the one you're reading about, it's time to move on to the next one. Either go into more detail and dedicate a chapter to each topic or make the book much, much smaller.

Even opening this book was a complete waste of my time.

[Jason Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was one of my bigger disappointments of the year. It's not a compendium of interesting stories from research. Instead, it's like Mr. Abrahams got an undergraduate to look up a bunch of interesting abstracts from research journals and then he put them into categories and published it.

If you enjoy reading abstracts (without links to the article) or enjoy reading the encyclopedia for fun, this is for you.

If you want to know more about research, there are much better writers who actually write.

[Xanthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in short bursts, during my lunch breaks at work. I honestly cannot believe that so many scientists and acedemics get the funding to carry out so much trivial, pointless and highly specific research, whilst others with more important and practical endeavours struggle. But, really, I should not have been all that surprised. Part of my job is to catalogue PHD theses and some of those topics would have nicely fit into this book.
I'd like to add that the general feel of this book was a bit to dry. I was expecting it to be more entertaining than what it was, hence the 2 stars.

[Timothy Burbage · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall this was a very mixed bag. The whole book seemed to be in a crazy order that I couldn't understand, with some papers only getting a title some got a it'll and an extract and some getting a 2 page explanation. It was very haphazard and as soon as I was getting into something, the author moved on. There were some excerpts and clip outs of papers, as well as some data tables and graphs, but they really didn't add anything to the explanation of the paper. I think this would be really entertaining as a series of newspaper articles or a twitter account, but not great as a book.

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Theoretically this book could be super fun - full of unusual and weird research.

In practice, it's just not well executed. If I owned it I could imagine it as bathroom reading, but since it's a library book back it goes... one of the few books I haven't finished.

[ufo28 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not get through this book,subject's of the research was completely not interesting for me and the form of the book almost not readable.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in the Goodreads First Reads Giveaway. It is not my usual genre and did find it hard going in parts and skipped quite a few pages.

[Miriam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Either not enough information about the topic or too much.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had potential, but meh.

[Nurshafiqa · Rating 1 out of 5]

so much potential.. but the way it was written was awful. it was a chore reading this.

1 star.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about interesting and unique findings in the scientific community, however this book was hard to get engaged with. Sections of the book were sometimes too short and at other points I just wasn't interested in that area of research.
That being said, I do love the idea behind the Ig Nobel prizes and I intend to look up winners from time to time.