Josie Ford
Head in the sand
The known risks – corporate, financial, personal, sexual – of starting an ostrich farm are perhaps not so well known in New England as in old England.
The Boston Globe profiled an entrepreneur who has begun raising ostriches in New Hampshire, a small state in New England. “Move over filet mignon,” says the headline, “meet the man who wants to make ostrich meat a staple.” The article then goes on to say how “A self-described ‘city boy’ created an ostrich farm in rural N.H”.
The 2002 Ig Nobel Prize in biology was awarded to Norma Bubier, Charles Paxton, Phil Bowers and D. Charles Deeming, for their report “Courtship behaviour of ostriches (Struthio camelus) towards humans under farming conditions in Britain”.
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The four researchers had been asked to investigate why ostriches at British farms were failing to produce enough baby ostriches. Careful observation made clear what was happening: ostriches hatched on British farms often found their two-armed companions to be more sexually attractive than their two-winged companions.
Feedback has learned, from conversations with one of the scientists, that some of the ostriches showed a special yearning for that particular scientist. Feedback sends good wishes, along with what Americans call “hopes and prayers”, to the New Hampshire farmer.
Coffee aromatherapy
Praewpat Pachimsawat, Manita Tammayan, Thi Kim Anh Do and Nattinee Jantaratnotai devised a fairly simple way to deliver aroma to dental students. Opting not to infuse an entire room with a general miasma, they sought to achieve “personal coffee aroma distribution”.
Personal coffee aroma distribution, desirable though it is, wasn’t the ultimate purpose. This project had a different, clearly stated goal: “[We] aimed to investigate the potential reduction of academic stress related to a graded oral presentation in postgraduate dental students using coffee aromatherapy.”
The story appears in the study “The use of coffee aroma for stress reduction in postgraduate dental students”. One photo caption gives the essence of what the team did: “Coffee essential oil (1 mL) was dropped onto a cotton pad at 5:100 concentration and placed near the nose with a lanyard and a personal fan to help distribute the aroma.”
The caption to a subsequent photo conveys some of the project’s drama: “The coffee essential oil was placed around a mannequin similar to an experimental setting with the tube set at 20 cm from the coffee aroma source. The tube (A) for transferring the aroma was connected to the e-nose machine (B).” The team reports a modicum of success in its stated aim.
Dental stress
Another reason dental students can feel stress becomes evident when one sees the title of the study “Influence of dental students’ dietary habits on tooth color” by Ayse Tugba Erturk Avunduk, Hande Filiz and Esra Cengiz Yanardağ.
They report making two discoveries: “Females have lighter teeth than males” and “The increase in the amount of consumption of the evaluated staining beverages is one of the factors that cause the tooth colors to become darker”.
Circumcision for nudists
Feedback congratulates the anonymous author of a news release from Brandon University in Canada for persuading their editor to run the item that bears this all-caps headline: “BU PROF RECOGNIZED FOR OUTSTANDING RESEARCH ON ANTI-CIRCUMCISION DEBATES”.
The first sentence may have been irresistible once it entered the writer’s mind. It says: “A respected Brandon University professor known for his cutting-edge work studying masculinity has received major recognition for one of his recent academic articles.”
Then come some technical details of interest to specialists: “[Jonathan Allan’s] article, ‘Reading anti-circumcision [activism] in Clothed with the Sun: The Quarterly Journal of Clothes-Optional Living’ … analyzes a debate about circumcision that unfolded in a nudist magazine, beginning with a 1986 article arguing for a natural foreskin as well as the letters to the editor that followed.” Then come some words of praise from the editor who published Allan’s research: “Jonathan’s work impressed us all because it is well-written and well-researched, and a great example of how to explain complex issues for a broad range of readers.”
Then, at the end, come some clarifying words for laypersons keen to read the study and learn more: “Please note that the article discusses and includes images about nudity and male genitals.”
Pharma drama
Feedback savours the panoply of emotions delivered to television viewers by an ad campaign for a drug that has the non-evocative name Bimzelx.
“Most people got 100 per cent clear skin”, says a voice-over, preparing us for the drama that arrives seconds later when a second voice-over adds: “Serious side effects, including suicidal thoughts and behaviour, infections and lower ability to fight them, liver problems and inflammatory bowel disease, have occurred.”
Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and co-founded the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is improbable.com.
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