Improbable Research

The January issue of mini-AIR just went out. It?s stuffed full of new professor-professors, and touches on each of the following topics: Pasta Optimization Project; Professor-Professor Quintet; Melvin Melvin search;? Tongue-shaped food; The Metrically Perfect Professor; Exhibitionists’ Progress Competition; Brain/Cocaine and Vicious Walks.(If you would like to have mini-AIR automatically sent to your email box every month, please subscribe to it. It?s free.)

Criminal gangs in Italy have found a lucrative new way of earning money – hijacking lorries containing wheels of Parmesan cheese….

To counter the thefts, producers and the Italian farmers’ union, Coldiretti, are experimenting with microchips hidden in the crusts of the cheese, which means they are more easily identifiable.

So says a December 6, 2006 Observer report.

(Thanks to investigator Mary O’Grady for bringing this to our attention.)

Vertical Integration is a business concept: combining processes, factories, or even entire companies that together constitute different stages of the manufacturing/marketing/sales process for a particular industry. Season Shot, Inc., a perhaps apocryphal company in Bloomington, Minnesota, combines some industrial elements that, traditionally, were separate. Their industry: hunting and cooking. As they explain:

Season Shot is made of tightly packed seasoning bound by a fully biodegradable food product. The seasoning is actually injected into the bird on impact seasoning the meat from the inside out. When the bird is cooked the seasoning pellets melt into the meat spreading the flavor to the entire bird.

(Thanks to investigator R. Henry Jonas for bringing this to our attention.)

Investigator Martha Parkinson writes:

Dear improbable.com owner,

As we both have an interest in helping women, I am writing to you about establishing a potential linking relationship between our two web sites.

As you publish a lot of bra related material at improbable.com, I wondered if you would be interested in exchanging links with my web site www.my-bra.com.

Just this week at www.my-bra.com I?ve made available many pages from my e-book ?How to Look and Feel Great in a Bra? online. Your readers might find it very helpful.

Please let me know if you?d like to exchange links. As you know, exchanging links helps us all become more easily found in the search engines.

Best wishes,

Martha Parkinson
www.my-bra.com

Haggis, which is native to Scotland, can be bred and raised on a farm, if an article in the January 2007 issue of The Veterinary Record is correct. Investigator Pat Grant alerts us to the published study by haggis specialists at the University of Glasgow Veterinary School:

“Applications of Ultrasonography in the Reproductive Management of Dux magnus gentis venteris saginati,” A.M. King, L. Cromarty, C. Paterson, and J.S. Boyd, Veterinary Record, vol., no. 160, January 2007, pp. 94-6. The authors explain, more or less, that:

Dux magnus gentis venteris saginati is considered to be a Scottish delicacy; however, depleting wild stocks have resulted in attempts to farm them. Selective breeding has been successful in modifying behaviour, increasing body length, reducing hair coat and improving fank (litter) size. However, there are still significant problems associated with the terrain in which they are farmed. This article describes the use of ultrasonography in the reproductive management of this species and the introduction of new genetic material in an attempt to address these problems, with the aim of improving welfare and productivity.