Neatorama

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• 7 Less-than-Romantic Valentine's Day Promotions
• Artist Paints with Human Ashes
• 8 Great Valentine's Day Gifts for Your Favorite Geek
• Leprechaun Bottle Cover
• DSLR Paparazzi Lamp
• Nano-Cupid
• Funny Science T-Shirts
• Smart Floor
• <i>Star Wars</i> Toilet
• Cops Chase Doughnut Truck
• Puritan Valentine's Day Cards
• Cool Jewels Ice Tray
• Death by Coca Cola
• A Good Day to Die Hard in Claymation
• Square Egg
• Julia Pastrana Buried 153 Years After Her Death
• One-Man Bank
• Explaining Steroids to an Alien
• Robotic Harassment Causes Depression in Rats
• LEGO Head Drinking Bottle
• An Honest Trailer for The Notebook
• Sea Slugs Have Disposable Penis
• Ol' Jay's Brainteasers
• The Appendix Evolved More Than 30 Times
• Vietnam - Looking Into the Past
• Hand-Knitted Sweater for a Giraffe
• The Actors Who've Portrayed Lincoln
• Bunny Cupcake Decorating Kit
• <i>Breaking Bad</i> Teddy Bear Cake
• Script an Astronomer, <i>Then</i> Reach for the Stars

7 Less-than-Romantic Valentine's Day Promotions Posted: 14 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST Hey, we should be used to businesses capitalizing on holidays even if the link is less than obvious. Or discernible at all. But how romantic can having a cockroach named in your honor possibly be? Maybe just a little more romantic than a coupon for liposuction or a sewer plant tour. Mental_floss has rounded up seven promotional events that completely suck all the romantic feelings out of Valentine's Day. That doesn't mean you won't want to participate! Link

Artist Paints with Human Ashes Posted: 14 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST Sergio Portillo, an artist in Florence, Alabama, first began composing memorial paintings using the ashes of deceased pets. Then people approached him with cremated human remains: On his painter’s pallet, Portillo adds acrylic color with a person’s cremated remains, turning ashes into art. “The artwork, to me is like an additional memory to the person`s life, you know the pain of missing someone can be overwhelming and I like to believe the loved ones art can help ease the pain in a lot of ways,” said Portillo. With Sergio’s artwork, every brush stroke brings new color to the canvas adding layers of life to the painting. “It`s not like the traditional urn, you know, some people just receive a container with the ashes.  I think it`s something additional.  They like to get close to their loved ones,” said Portillo. According to the artist, these soulful works of art serve as a permanent tribute to family members, reflecting on the life and how the loved one will always be remembered. Link -via Weird Universe | Image: WHNT

8 Great Valentine's Day Gifts for Your Favorite Geek Posted: 14 Feb 2013 03:00 AM PST A Valentine's Day gift means more when it's not only romantic, but acknowledges your sweetheart's interests or passions. There are plenty of geeky gifts for fans in this list, including these Red Supreme Valentine's Dalek Dangle Earrings from the HokeyDonut Etsy shop for a Doctor Who fan. There are also gift ideas for gamers, sci-fi geeks, and even Bronies! Link

Leprechaun Bottle Cover Posted: 14 Feb 2013 02:00 AM PST Leprechaun Bottle Cover St. Patrick's Day is coming. Are you looking for a fun way to dress up your lackluster bottle of wine? Get your spirit into the holiday spirit with the Leprechaun Bottle Cover from the NeatoShop. This adorable set includes a hat and a faux fur trimmed coat. Little four leaf clover details adorn both the hat and the coat.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Barware & Cocktail items.  Link

DSLR Paparazzi Lamp Posted: 14 Feb 2013 02:00 AM PST Do you want to feel like a celebrity? Sandra Díaz has just the lamp for you. Her wooden DSLR Paparazzi Lamp is always watching you, waiting for you to do something embarrassing. Link -via Contemporist

Nano-Cupid Posted: 14 Feb 2013 01:00 AM PST Image: Lawrence Barrett/BYU Need to find love by Valentine's Day? If Nano-Cupid can't help, well, don't blame him - he's really teeny tiny! The cupid above was made from nanotubes by researchers at Brigham Young University: Link

Funny Science T-Shirts Posted: 14 Feb 2013 12:00 AM PST Brainier Than The Average Bear Profess your love of science with Science T-Shirts from the NeatoShop. It's scientifically proven that these shirts will make you sexier to the opposite sex (yeah, we made that up, but still ... wearing cool science tees can't hurt!) Links: Math T-Shirts | Physics T-Shirts | Chemistry T-Shirts | Biology T-Shirts I Heart Science Powered by Caffeine Math Problems? Resistance Begins at Ohm Mmm ... Pi Hydrogen Bondage Math Puns are the First Sine of Madness Polar Bears are Soluble in Water The Scientific Mole View more neat Science T-Shirts over at the NeatoShop

Smart Floor Posted: 13 Feb 2013 11:00 PM PST What if screens are all around us, sensing our every move? Hasso Platner Institute and Microsoft Research answered that question with this cool yet creepy "smart floor" called GravitySpace: Through a series of research projects, they’ve developed a smart floor (called Multitoe) that can sense, identify, and distinguish the presence of individual people and furniture. Then, using software and a projector placed well beneath a glass floor (called GravitySpace), they can extend the real world into a sort of subterranean digital shadow. [...] The floor itself uses a technology called FTIR, a network of invisible, IR-based light sensors that can measure the footprints of any physical entity. It’s so sensitive that software can actually extrapolate pressure information, which can imply the movements and poses of the human bodies standing on it. As for those digital shadows themselves, the models do have to be built ahead of time, but all of the movement animations are being rendered in real time. So several different people can automatically have their pre-built avatars sucked from a library when they walk into a room, and the experience is seamless. Mark Wilson of Co.DESIGN has the post: Link

<i>Star Wars</i> Toilet Posted: 13 Feb 2013 10:00 PM PST You've never heard of the Porcelain Falcon? It's the ship that made the sewer run in less than twelve gallons! -via Technabob | Photo: unknown

Cops Chase Doughnut Truck Posted: 13 Feb 2013 09:00 PM PST A Krispy Kreme delivery truck stopped at the Quick Shop on Dacula Road in Gwinnet County, Georgia. While the driver was inside unloading doughnuts, security camera footage shows how another man, later identified as James Freddy Major, jumped into the truck and drove off!   The store clerk immediately called police. Police said Major led them on a nearly 15-mile chase. He went from Dacula Road, down Highway 316, to Interstate 85. "Could you imagine going down the interstate and seeing the Krispy Kreme donut truck with the cops chasing behind it?; Flashing lights? What would you think,” said store worker Susan Patterson. He eventually came to a dead end in a residential neighborhood. Police said he tried to run but a police dog tracked him down. Police arrested Major on several charges, including theft and driving under the influence. Link -via Fark

Puritan Valentine's Day Cards Posted: 13 Feb 2013 08:00 PM PST Do you have the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy? Alex Z. Rogers has some appropriately subdued Valentines for you to share. Read all of them at the link, distribute them, then take a cold shower. Link -via Theresa Coleman

Cool Jewels Ice Tray Posted: 13 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST Cool Jewels Ice Tray Valentine's Day is almost here. Has your Valentine hinted that they would really love some ice? Surprise them the Cool Jewels Ice Tray from the NeatoShop. This delciously fun ice tray makes 6 dazzling jewel-shaped ice cubes per tray.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Ice Trays.  Link

Death by Coca Cola Posted: 13 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST Drinking too much soda is bad for you, but can cola actually kill you? Apparently so. A 31-year-old New Zealand woman died following a cardiac arrhythmia which the coroner blamed on her 2.2 gallon-a-day Coca Cola habit: Her family called it an "addiction" that resulted in the removal of multiple rotten teeth and the birth of at least one child lacking tooth enamel; her partner said Natasha Harris suffered withdrawal symptoms if she didn't drink the stuff. [...] The examination after her death revealed an enlarged liver with fatty deposits due to too much sugar, a pathologist said. Low potassium in her bloodstream may also have been linked to the soda. Harris apparently consumed more than two pounds of sugar and 970mg of caffeine a day; experts say even 500mg is dangerous. Coca-Cola said it was "disappointed" about the coroner's emphasis on Coke in Harris' death, though his report did state that the company "cannot be held responsible for the health of consumers who drink unhealthy quantities of the product." Link

A Good Day to Die Hard in Claymation Posted: 13 Feb 2013 06:00 PM PST (YouTube link) In Lee Hardcastle's claymation trailer for the new Die Hard film, John McClay blows up Russia and everything else. (via The Browser)

Square Egg Posted: 13 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST Well, there is an upside to genetically modified food. British designer Dominic Wilcox envisioned one such enhancement (though could you imagine the poor chicken that has to lay that egg?). Designboom has the pic: Link

Julia Pastrana Buried 153 Years After Her Death Posted: 13 Feb 2013 04:00 PM PST Julia Pastrana, once known as "the ugliest woman in the world," was born in 1834 with hypertrichosis terminalis, meaning her entire body was covered with hair several inches long. She also had a deformed mouth with huge teeth, leading one doctor of the day to declare that she was "a hybrid between human and orangutan." However, Pastrana sang with a beautiful voice and could speak several languages. She was exhibited by Theodor Lent, who eventually married her. In 1860, Pastrana gave birth in Moscow to a son who was also covered with hair, and who died within two days. Pastrana herself died five days later. Her body was preserved and exhibited by various owners for the next few decades, eventually ending up in storage in Oslo. Now, thanks to the efforts of Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata, Pastrana's body was returned to her native Mexico, where she was buried today. People flocked to the town of Sinaloa de Leyva on Tuesday where Julia Pastrana was laid to rest in a white coffin adorned with white roses. "Imagine the aggression and cruelty of humankind she had to face, and how she overcame it. It's a very dignified story," said Sinaloa Governor Mario Lopez. "A human being should not be the object of anyone," Father Jaime Reyes Retana told mourners. Link  -via Buzzfeed

One-Man Bank Posted: 13 Feb 2013 03:00 PM PST Photo: Lisi Niesner/Reuters Hate big and impersonal banks? Residents of Gammesfeld, Germany, don't have that problem. They have the polar opposite of Big Banks: the town's Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG is run by one man, CEO Peter Breiter, who records daily business by hand, often on paper. The Guardian has more pics: Link

Explaining Steroids to an Alien Posted: 13 Feb 2013 02:00 PM PST When you explain complicated concepts to an extraterrestrial, or a time-traveler, or a child with no frame of reference, you must boil the idea down to its simplest elements. But sometimes doing that reveals that the concept itself makes no sense! Maybe we should do this sort of thing more often. Link

Robotic Harassment Causes Depression in Rats Posted: 13 Feb 2013 01:00 PM PST Photo: Takanishi Lab/Waseda University Well, you'd be depressed too if you have a robot chasing after you. To create depression in rodents, scientists at the Waseda University in Tokyo enlised the help of a robot rat to terrorize lab rats: In order to create a workable model of a human mental disorder like depression, anxiety or schizophrenia, rats are often genetically manipulated or have their nerve system surgically altered. Sometimes they are forced to swim for long periods of time. Now, researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo have created a new method: Let a robotic rat terrorize the rats into depression. WR-3, a robotic rat designed to interact with lab rats, bugs the rats until they exhibit signs of depression, signaled by a lack of activity -- when rats are depressed, they move around less. WR-3 is programmed with three different behaviors: "chasing," "continuous attack" and "interactive attack." Each one was designed to induce a different level of stress in rats. Chasing stresses the rats out, while the attacks create an environment of pain and fear. Shaunacy Ferro of PopSci has the post: Link

LEGO Head Drinking Bottle Posted: 13 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST LEGO Head Drinking Bottle (sold individually) Are you looking for a fun way to encourage your kids to drink more water? Get your favorite LEGO fanatic the LEGO Head Drinking Bottle from the NeatoShop. This adorable reusable bottle with minifig style head is BPA free. It is the perfect piece to add to any LEGO loving household.   The LEGO Head Drinking Bottle is available in Blue and Red. Buy both and make it LEGO-riffic set. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic LEGO items and great  Glassware & Drinkware. Link

An Honest Trailer for The Notebook Posted: 13 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST (YouTube link) If you're thinking of watching a romantic film for Valentine's Day, tell your significant other that The Notebook was completely rented out and the only thing available was Inglourious Basterds or District Nine. Seriously, you'll thank me for this advice. Screen Junkies explains why in the latest of the Honest Trailer series.

Sea Slugs Have Disposable Penis Posted: 13 Feb 2013 11:00 AM PST Add this to the huge list of strangest animal mating habits we've posted on Neatorama a while back: the hermaphrodite Chromodoris reticulata sea slug has a disposable penis that snaps off every time it finishes mating. (But don't fret, Neatoramanauts, it has got spare penises) Like almost all nudibranchs, C.reticulata is a hermaphrodite. Every individual is both male and female. When they have sex, both partners sidle up to each other (always on the right side) and penetrate each other at the same time. From afar it looks like a single white thread unites them. Zoom in closer, and you can make out two distinct parallel penises. They fill each other’s vaginas with sperm for around ten minutes. Ayami Sekizawa from Osaka City University watched the mating slugs, she noticed something odd. After they finished mating, they would crawl away with their penises still extruded from their bodies. Twenty minutes later, these trailing genitals broke off completely. That ought to be a fairly ruinous end to the slug’s sex life, but after a day, C.reticulata is ready to mate again. Its secret is a penis that’s much longer than it lets on. When it mates, it extrudes around a centimetre of penis, but the full organ is three centimetres long. The rest remains coiled up inside the animal. Each segment may be disposable, but C.reticulata has three of them. Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science has the story: Link

Ol' Jay's Brainteasers Posted: 13 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST BRI members enjoy trying to stump us with brainteasers and riddles. Now we try to stump you back. 1. One morning while she was eating breakfast, Laura's diamond ring slipped off her finger and fell into a full cup of coffee, but the ring didn't get wet. Why not? 2. Sam's father is five years older than Sam's grandfather. How can this be? 3. What grows down while it grows up? 4. Five hundred begins it, five hundred ends it, Five in the middle is seen. The first of all letters, the first of all people, Take their place in between. Combine them all to make the name of a famous king. 5. What is the only professional sport in which neither the players nor the spectators know the score until the match is over? 6. What ship has two mates but no captain? 7. What is it that turns everything around but does not move itself? 8. What is the greatest worldwide use of cowhide? 9. I know a man who can shave ten times a day and still have a full beard. Who is he? The answer is neither one of these guys. 10. My friend Julia was walking down Fifth Street when she found something that had no bones and no legs. She brought it home and put it on her windowsill. A week later, it walked away. What did Julia find? 11. I can sizzle like bacon, I am made with an egg, I have plenty of backbone but lack a good leg. I peel layers like onions, but still remain whole; I can be long, like a flagpole, yet fit in a hole. What am I? 12. Hi there! Ma and Pa told me I'd better tell you that all the two-letter words in this paragraph have something in common -or else! What's the deal? 13. The first man is the master of priceless gems; The second man is the master of love; The third man is the master of shovels; The fourth man is the master of big sticks; Who are they? 14. What well-known object is described in this poetic riddle by the 19-century English poet Sir Edmund Goss? My love, when I gaze on thy beautiful face, Careering along, yet always in place, The though has often come into my mind If I ever shall see they glorious behind. Continue reading for the answers when you are ready for them. Highlight the answer you want to see. 1. The cup was filled with dry, ground coffee. 2. Sam's father was 50 when he married. His bride was 25; her father was 45. When Sam was born a year later, his father was 51 and his grandfather on his mother's side was 46. 3. A goose. 4. David ("D" is the Roman numeral for 500, "V" is the Roman numeral for 5, "a" is the first letter of the alphabet, and "I" is the first person). 5. Boxing. 6. A relationship. 7. A mirror. 8. To cover cows. 9. He's a barber. 10. An egg. 11. A snake. 12. They're all abbreviations of U.S. states. HI -Hawaii, MA -Massachusetts, PA -Pennsylvania, ME -Maine, ID -Idaho, IN -Indiana, OR -Oregon. 13. They're kings in a deck of cards. 14. The moon. _____________________________ The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader, a fantastic book by the Bathroom Readers' Institute. The 17th book in this the Bathroom Reader series is filled to the brim with facts, fun, and fascination, including articles about the Origin of Kung Fu, How to Kill a Zombie, Women in Space and more! Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

The Appendix Evolved More Than 30 Times Posted: 13 Feb 2013 09:30 AM PST The appendix, the worm-shaped tube attached to the colon, has long been thought of as useless (joke is that the function of the appendix is to get appendicitis, which ensures the continual employment of surgeons). Recently, it has been suggested that the appendix actually has a real function: to <a href="http://www.neatorama.com/2012/07/02/not-so-useless-after-all-the-appendixs-function-is-to-re-boot-the-digestive-system/">reboot the digestive system</a> after a bout of gastrointestinal diseases. Now, another study has added weight to the usefulness of the appendix. In fact, it is so usefull that it evolved some 32 times throughout history: ... careful anatomical study of other mammals has revealed that species as diverse as beavers, koalas, and porcupines also have a structure jutting off of their guts in exactly the same place as our appendix—in other words, the feature is much more common among mammals than once thought. Now, an international team of researchers that includes Heather F. Smith, an evolutionary biologist at Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona, and William Parker, a surgeon who studies the immune system at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, says it has the strongest evidence yet that the appendix serves a purpose. In a new study, published online this month in Comptes Rendus Palevol, the researchers compiled information on the diets of 361 living mammals, including 50 species now considered to have an appendix, and plotted the data on a mammalian evolutionary tree. They found that the 50 species are scattered so widely across the tree that the structure must have evolved independently at least 32 times, and perhaps as many as 38 times. Link

Vietnam - Looking Into the Past Posted: 13 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST Photographer Khánh Hmoong took historical pictures of Vietnam in the 20th-century and matched themup with the same locations in the 21st century. In many photos, the landscape remains the same, although the world is quite different. In others, the landscape itself has changed. The picture shown here is the former Presidential Palace, with a photo of the fall of Saigon (known as the Liberation of Saigon in Vietnam) on April 30, 1975, on top. Very few of the pictures in the set have anything to do with the American involvement. Link -via Laughing Squid (Image credit: Flickr user Khánh Hmoong)

Hand-Knitted Sweater for a Giraffe Posted: 13 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST Knitting a sweater and giving it to a friend or family member is a traditional expression of affection. Mai Yamashita and Naoto Kobayashi knitted this enormous one to fit a full grown giraffe in a zoo. Still, "they knew that the giraffe would never accept the sweater or wear it." How sad. Link -via Lustik

The Actors Who've Portrayed Lincoln Posted: 13 Feb 2013 07:00 AM PST President Abraham Lincoln will always be a popular character in movies: historically significant, larger than life, and the kind of man others aspire to be. He rose from poverty to become president, and his life story has a dreadfully dramatic ending. And Hollywood knows a good story when it sees one. IMDB lists at least 327 movies with Abraham Lincoln as a character, the earliest is 1911, though there were certainly more, and I’d have to do actual research to dig those up, so let’s just pretend for today it started in 1911. The one that caught my eye is saucily titled “Lincoln, the Lover” (1914), starring the first standout Lincoln, Ralph Ince. Ince directed over 171 films in the very earliest days of cinema, and gained notoriety as Lincoln from about 1906 to his last appearance in “The Highest Law” (1921). Others who've played Lincoln include Gregory Peck, Jason Robards, Sam Waterson, Walter Huston, Kris Kristofferson, and Daniel Day-Lewis. Read about them and see more pictures at Pajiba. Link  -via Unreality

Bunny Cupcake Decorating Kit Posted: 13 Feb 2013 06:00 AM PST Bunny Cupcake Decorating Kit Do you long to make fanciful baked creations in your kitchen, but fear you lack the skill or talent? Cheat with the Bunny Cupcake Decorating Kit from the NeatoShop. This delciously easy decorating set includes ears, jelly bean eyes and nose, and green shoestring licorice whiskers. All you need is to make or buy the cupcake and put the bunny together. It makes a delightfully simple Easter project.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Baking Supplies.  Link

<i>Breaking Bad</i> Teddy Bear Cake Posted: 13 Feb 2013 06:00 AM PST While nursing a hangover, redditor hollyicing made this cake resembling the burned teddy bear that fell into Walter White's swimming pool: It's a variation of a madeira cake that's lemon and passion fruit flavour with passion fruit butter icing and stacked using home made passion fruit and lemon jam. 3 layers were stacked then sculped into before I did a crumb layer of icing and then piped the butter icing on top. The eye ball was going to be a gob stopper but I couldn't get a plain white one in the right size so lumped for a ball of white marzipan. The whole thing was splashed with black food dye and then burnt a bit to give it that burnt bear look (and also because I like burning things)  Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

Script an Astronomer, <i>Then</i> Reach for the Stars Posted: 13 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable research. Eric Schulman National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia Abstract Why do so many Hollywood movies fail? The fault lies not in their stars, but  in the professions of the characters. In its search for success, the movie industry has under-utilized a proven winner: a movie is most likely to succeed when it has astronomer characters. 1. Introduction The holy grail (Nadis 1996) of Hollywood is a formula to predict the popularity of a movie before it's made. Here we present just such an algorithm, which predicts a linear relationship between the perceived quality of a movie and the number of characters who are astronomers or astrophysicists. That this correlation hasn't been discovered before is not surprising because of the small number of astronomers in "the industry." 2. Methods We used the Internet Movie Database (IMDb; Bernhardt et al. 1997) to search for movies with astronomer or astrophysicist characters that had been evaluated by at least ten IMDb users. Seventeen such movies were found by searching for "astronomer" and "astrophysicist" in the character name and plot summary fields and for "astronomy" in the genre field. The number of astronomer (or astrophysicist; the terms will be used interchangeably hereafter) characters was estimated from the IMDb character lists, IMDb plot summaries, and the memory of the senior author for films (or movies; the terms will be used interchangeably hereafter) that had been previously viewed by this researcher. The referee suggested that we view each of the movies in our sample to more precisely determine the number of astronomer characters, but we decided that this would strain our research budget. 3. Results The number of astronomer characters and the IMDb rating [on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being worst and 10 being best; the lowest-rated movie we could find was Manos, the Hands of Fate (1966), with a rating of 2.3, and the top film we found was Star Wars (1977), with a rating of 8.9 (the referee pointed out that one of the films listed in Table 1 below has a rating of 9.2, but this film only had ten votes and we restricted the search we just described to films with at least fifty votes, on the grounds that this information was easily found in the IMDb)] are plotted in Figure 1 for each of the seventeen movies. Linear regression analysis revealed a slight correlation between the number of astronomers and the IMDb rating. Since this slight correlation didn't agree with our preconceived ideas (uh...we mean with our preliminary hypothesis), we needed to decide whether to discard the hypothesis or to discard some of the data (up to half; Schulman 1996; Schulman and Cox 1997; Schulman, Cox, and Schulman 1999). Since the eight movies having one astronomer character and IMDb ratings greater than 7.0 were obvious outliers, we discarded these and then re-ran the linear regression analysis, which resulted in a fit that supported our preliminary hypothesis (Figure 1). The reasons for discarding each outlying data point are summarized in Table 1. Figure 1   Table 1: Obvious Outliers Title (Year)                     IMDb   Reason for Discarding Colpo di luna (1995)              9.2   This film is set in Italy. Twelve Monkeys (1995)             8.2   This is a time travel movie,                                         and we don't believe in time                                         travel. The Sea Hawk (1940)               8.1   We don't believe that the                                         Spanish Armada has anything                                         to do with astrophysics. Straw Dogs (1971)                 7.9   This film is set in England. Addicted to Love (1997)           7.3   We never saw this movie so                                         it couldn't have been all                                         that good. Moonlight and Valentino (1995)    7.3   The astrophysicist in this                                         movie dies off-screen during                                         the first scene.  Top Gun (1986)                    7.2   The lead actress described                                         this role as "just another                                          dumb astrophysicist," which                                         we take offense at. Roxanne (1987)                    7.1   This is a modernization of                                         a French play. 'Nuff said. 4. Discussion The fact that there is a correlation between the number of astronomers and the quality of a movie shouldn't be surprising. Contact (1997) was very highly regarded and it has a large number of astronomer characters. On the other hand, everyone can think of many very bad films that don't have any astronomer characters [for example, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964), with an IMDb rating of 3.1]. Despite the lack of astronomers in the movie industry (Cox and Schulman 1998), astronomers are still over-represented in films compared to their numbers in society. More than 0.1% of movies with IMDb ratings have astronomer characters even though only about 0.001% of the population are astronomers. This factor of 100 over-representation is due to the unconscious realization on the part of movie producers that astronomer characters increase film sales. Note also that the seventeen films with astronomer characters have an average IMDb rating of 7.1, significantly higher than the average of 5.5 that would have been expected by chance [the referee pointed out that we had discarded eight of these movies in a previous section, but we suspect that this referee is none other than Dr. Earle E. Spamer, who has been known to publish results that are incorrect by five orders of magnitude (Spamer 1997)]. 5. Conclusions We have shown that there is a relationship between the number of astronomer characters and the perceived quality of a film. The average film with no astronomer characters is only in the 50th percentile for quality, while the average film with at least one astronomer character is in the top 10% of movies; the average film with more than five astronomer characters is in the top 0.3% of movies. It is obvious that there are currently too few astronomers in the film industry, and yet it's also true that only about 25% of Ph.D. astronomers are able to stay in astronomy due to a shortage of permanent jobs in the field. Clearly, it's time for the smart studios to start hiring as many astronomers as they possibly can before their competition realizes what a gold mine they have been overlooking. References Bernhardt, A., Cairella, G., Chapman, M., Glickstein, B., Hafner, M., Harding, M., Hartill, R., Heidelbach, O., Higgins, R., Jay, A., Lebovic, H., Mai, J., Needham, C., Reeves, J., Simeon, P., Tinto, C. 1997, http://us.imdb.com/ Cox, C. V., and Schulman, E. 1998, we've thought seriously about writing a paper about bad astrophysics in movies and television shows Nadis, S. 1996, Annals of Improbable Research, 2, 2, 4 Schulman, E. R. 1996, Annals of Improbable Research, 2, 5, 8 Schulman, E. R., and Cox, C. V. 1997, Annals of Improbable Research, 3, 5, 8 Schulman, E. R., Cox, C. V., and Schulman, E. A. 1999, Annals of Improbable Research, 5, 6, 9 Spamer, E. E. 1997, Annals of Improbable Research, 3, 4, 15 _____________________ This article is republished with permission from the May-June 1999 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift! Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

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