The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

compiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell,
Improbable Research staff

Frank Fish is a Professor of Biology at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He studies energetics and hydrodynamics of vertebrate swimming, with particular regard to propulsive modes and the evolution of aquatic mammals. He also likes fish.

We previously presented some of Professor Fish’s work (see “What Do Fishes Know About Fishes?” AIR 9:4) and some photographs of him in the company of several kinds of fish and other animals (see the AIR Vents column for the past several years).

Here is a further selection of Fish’s citations and cetaceans and fish and much else. The citations
are partial -- just the titles and publication years of some of Professor Fish’s studies on swimming, fish, or related subjects. For fuller details, see any good database or see Professor Fish’s web site.

1982 - Muskrats

Aerobic energetics of surface swimming in the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus).

Function of the compressed tail of surface swimming muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus).

1983 - Muskrats

Metabolic effects of swimming velocity and water temperature in the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)

1984 - Muskrats, alligators

Mechanics, power output, and efficiency of the swimming muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus).

Kinematics of undulatory swimming in the American alligator.

1987 - Alligators, frogfish

Behavioral thermoregulation of small American alligators in water: Postural changes in relation to the thermal environment.

Kinematics and power output of jet propulsion by the frogfish genus Antennarius (Lophiiformes: Antennariidae).

1988 - Seals

Kinematics and estimated thrust production of swimming harp and ringed seals.

1990 - Flying fish

Wing design and scaling of flying fish with regard to flight performance.

America doesn't have many roundabouts because even if you understand how one works, you have to worry about other drivers who don't. But they are a fact of life in Britain. The ultimate roundabout is this one in Swindon that is actually a cluster of roundabouts in one intersection.  

The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England, constructed in 1972, is the most brilliant and at the same time, the most confusing roundabout ever built. The roundabout, named after the popular children's television series by the same name, is located near the County Ground and consists of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle. At first sight, it might appear to confuse or amuse new visitors and certainly baffle tourists but once you understand how the roundabout works you will realize how revolutionary the idea is.

Other pictures and diagrams at Amusing Planet may help you parse out what is supposed to happen. Keep in mind that driving on the  left side of the road is the correct thing to do in this location. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Google Earth)

This bird is Nyctibius griseus, or the common Potoo. The nocturnal bird of Central and South America is a master of camouflage, but you'd never know it by looking at those crazy eyes. See more pictures of this funny-looking bird at imgur. Link -via reddit

(Image credit: Carlos Gussoni)

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts, and Mother Figures. May your Mother's Day be filled with love, laughter,

wonderful handmade cards,

and gifts.

May you also be lucky enough to have some sweet, sweet person clean all the goo off the inside of your minivan.   

A special thank you goes out to all the hardworking preschool and elementary school teachers who help make Mother's Day so special for us Moms. I applaud your creativity, patience, and follow-through. Without you my scrapbook would be empty. 

Physically brave to the point of recklessness, this leader has courage beyond any doubt. But sometimes, this hero, revered by many, makes poor decisions, largely because of the belief that the best solution to any problem is a direct, frontal attack. 

Yes, I'm taking about Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony. But I'm also referring to Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood.

The Elements of Harmony were absent from America during the terrible years of 1861 to 1865. But there were plenty of heroes, clods, fools and geniuses among the general officers of both armies. You can find similar people--er, ponies-- on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic today. Let's link together ponies and their military counterparts during the American Civil War.

Like Twilight Sparkle, U.S. Maj. Gen. Henry Jackson Hunt did not seek fame, but he also did not avoid great responsibility. He was an intellectual who bent his logical mind to solving complex problems. I suspect that if Twilight Sparkle had been in command of Federal artillery at Gettysburg, she would have devastated Pickett's Charge as well as Hunt did.

Pinkie Pie is an outside of the box thinker noted for her bold and original solutions. The one-man band that she made during "Swarm of the Century" confused her friends, but terminated the parasprite menace. Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart had a similar disposition, well-demonstrated during his terror-inducing circumnavigation of the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign.

Bacon--it's nature's font of miracles! Pearl Cantrell of Richland Springs, Texas is 105 years old. How did she live so long? You already know the answer:

"I love bacon, I eat it everyday", says Pearl, "I don't feel as old as I am, that's all I can say", she explains.

Still feisty and full of life, Pearl has been through a lot, and has plenty of reasons to complain or even give up. After mothering seven children, outliving three of them, losing a husband, and enduring decades of physical labor, she still has a smile on her face.

"I would go to the field and work till dinner, then come home to fix dinner, then I would go back out to the field and work again until supper", Pearl tells us.

But Pearl's daughter, Anno, says complaining is the last thing you'll ever hear her mother do.

"She's taught us to work hard and to get up every morning and think about living. She's never thought about dying", says Anno.

Link -via Glenn Reynolds

(Image: KRBC)

Mineo Mizuno, an artist in Brooklyn, grows moss in lovely patterns on stones. He calls his enchanting series "Coexistence." Wouldn't they look lovely in a backyard garden?

Link -via Urban Gardens

We've seen latte art before, but I'm really impressed by these 3D works. Kazuki Yamamato, an artist in Osaka, made them. They're the perfect caffeinated perk ups.

Link -via Twisted Sifter | Yamamato's Twitter Feed

The Google Glass interface may be useful, but it isn't stylish. If you want hip-looking computer parts, then you shop at Apple. Tobias Lunchbreath suggests that Apple makes AR viewers that look like monocles which, you may recall, are becoming fashionable again.

Link -via Core77

Nina Levy is a photographer and sculptor, but she draws some awesome things, too -on napkins for her sons' lunches! I would think the boys would use school napkins to actually clean up any mess, because the ones Mom puts in their lunch boxes are works of art.

What is that thing at the gallery? Rick Clise, an American-born artist living in Australia, made this sculpture. He asks:

What is art? Is it the concept or the execution of the work? What's more important, the idea or the object? Is it simply that anything produced by an 'artist' is 'art'? What is good art and what is important art? Why do some artists become 'collectable' while the rest can only wish to be? Why do some artists go in and out of favour? Does their art become more, then less important as a result? If a painting is well made but, without paint drips running down it, does that make it second rate when compared with the work of our superstars? If a five year old could make it is it still art? 

It's simply overwhelming! Give me the answers!

Link -via Lustik

Peter Nonacs, professor of biology at UCLA, teaches Game Theory in his Behavioral Ecology course. He told his students that for an upcoming exam, they could do anything that would normally be considered cheating:

A week before the test, I told my class that the Game Theory exam would be insanely hard—far harder than any that had established my rep as a hard prof. But as recompense, for this one time only, students could cheat. They could bring and use anything or anyone they liked, including animal behavior experts. (Richard Dawkins in town? Bring him!) They could surf the Web. They could talk to each other or call friends who’d taken the course before. They could offer me bribes. (I wouldn’t take them, but neither would I report it to the dean.) Only violations of state or federal criminal law such as kidnapping my dog, blackmail, or threats of violence were out of bounds. [...]

Once the shock wore off, they got sophisticated. In discussion section, they speculated, organized, and plotted. What would be the test’s payoff matrix? Would cooperation be rewarded or counter-productive? Would a large group work better, or smaller subgroups with specified tasks? What about “scroungers” who didn’t study but were planning to parasitize everyone else’s hard work? How much reciprocity would be demanded in order to share benefits? Was the test going to play out like a dog-eat-dog Hunger Games? In short, the students spent the entire week living Game Theory. It transformed a class where many did not even speak to each other into a coherent whole focused on a single task—beating their crazy professor’s nefarious scheme.

On the day of the hour-long test they faced a single question: “If evolution through natural selection is a game, what are the players, teams, rules, objectives, and outcomes?”

Most students responded by working together:

One student immediately ran to the chalkboard, and she began to organize the outputs for each question section. The class divided tasks. They debated. They worked on hypotheses. Weak ones were rejected, promising ones were developed. Supportive evidence was added. A schedule was established for writing the consensus answers. (I remained in the room, hoping someone would ask me for my answers, because I had several enigmatic clues to divulge. But nobody thought that far afield!) As the test progressed, the majority (whom I shall call the “Mob”) decided to share one set of answers. Individuals within the Mob took turns writing paragraphs, and they all signed an author sheet to share the common grade. Three out of the 27 students opted out (I’ll call them the “Lone Wolves”). Although the Wolves listened and contributed to discussions, they preferred their individual variants over the Mob’s joint answer.

In the end, the students learned what social insects like ants and termites have known for hundreds of millions of years. To win at some games, cooperation is better than competition. Unity that arises through a diversity of opinion is stronger than any solitary competitor.

But that wasn't the end of of Prof. Nonacs's instruction:

But did the students themselves realize this? To see, I presented the class with one last evil wrinkle two days later, after the test was graded but not yet returned. They had a choice, I said. Option A: They could get the test back and have it count toward their final grade. Option B: I would—sight unseen—shred the entire test. Poof, the grade would disappear as if it had never happened. But Option B meant they would never see their results; they would never know if their answers were correct.

“Oh, my, can we think about this for a couple of days?” they begged. No, I answered. More heated discussion followed. It was soon apparent that everyone had felt good about the process and their overall answers. The students unanimously chose to keep the test. Once again, the unity that arose through a diversity of opinion was right. The shared grade for the Mob was 20 percent higher than the averages on my previous, more normal, midterms. Among the Lone Wolves, one scored higher than the Mob, one about the same, and one scored lower

Link | Photo: Alberto G.

Will in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air died on that basketball court in West Philadelphia. Alien and Blade Runner take place in the same universe. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin are actually movies made within the Batman universe after Bruce Wayne's secret identity was revealed.

These are theories that fans have developed about adult television programs and movies. But inventive and somewhat crazy fans have also spun out hidden connections and explanations for children's television programs. Here are eight good ones.

1. The Count, a vampire, rules Sesame Street. He feeds upon the children and enslaves the adults. Here are some of the arguments that Mighty God King makes to advance this theory:

FACT. The child cast of Sesame Street changes frequently and widely. You rarely see the same kids on the show for more than three or four episodes.

FACT. However, the adult cast of Sesame Street changes very, very rarely.

FACT. Everybody seems to take the fact that a vampire is wandering a New York City street with surprising calm.

2. Alternatively, Sesame Street is actually an exploration of Plato's Republic and, specifically, his Allegory of the Cave. Here is part of the argument made by redditor theterrorofmuffins:

Plato uses the sun and light to represent knowledge, truth, and reason many places in his works -- light allows us to see objects for what they really are rather than in the darkness, and the sun is the source of all light. Plato also emphasizes that true reason is something humans can never fully obtain, but it is something we can work for -- Kallipolis, the ideal city he envisions, is a fantasy that we can move towards, but we can never achieve. As imperfect rational beings, we don't know how to get there.

"Sunny days, sweepin' the clouds away. Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?"

Now, what about the philosopher ruler who must pass on his wisdom in order to educate and enlighten the world not overtly, but subtly. In the allegory, the enlightened individual who saw the light of the sun can only achieve this through creating shadowy illusions on the cave wall. However, there are many other "puppet masters" making shadows on the wall for the prisoners to watch, and they deceive and conjure things untruthfully and without reason. The enlightened one, however, because of the inevitability of his rejection were he to convey his reason directly, must use this shadowy mode of illusory puppeteering to get his message across by meager demonstration.

And that is what Sesame Street is -- the shadows on the wall, demonstrations of how we might live in a harmonious society. It's given to us at a young age through television by it's enlightened creators so that we might adapt to and absorb its positive message. Thank you, Sesame Street.

3. Do you remember Gargamel, the archnemesis of the Smurfs? He has a spell that will let him turn Smurfs into gold--provided that he has at least six Smurfs. This is among his motivations to hunt them. At other times, he wants to destroy them just to rid the world of their happiness or to eat them. Why would Gargamel want to eat the Smurfs? Because their flesh is an addictive hallucinagenic. CoCoa explains:

The Smurfs live in houses made og hollowed out mushrooms, they hollow out the mushrooms by eating the insides of it.

Psilocybin is the chemical compund in mushrooms that causes hallucinations. [...] Garagamel wants to eat the Smurfs because they are pure concentrated Psilocybin.

I'm so hungry. But he's so cute that I can't bear to wake him!

-via WTF Japan, Seriously

(Photo: unknown)

(Video Link)

You're beautiful. Even if you don't see it, other people do.

Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see. 

A woman walks into a room. A forensic sketch artist sits in the room with his back turned to her. He asks her to describe her own appearance. He sketches a face according to that description, then sends her away.

Another woman enters. The sketch artist asks her to describe the first woman. He draws a face according to that description.

Then he shows the first woman both portraits. Her own description was far, far more critical than the other woman's.

When it comes to body image, we're own own harshest critics.

Link -via Joe Carter