From the fabulous mini-Annals of Improbable Research (”mini-AIR”), September edition:
The judges have chosen co-winners in the President’s Left Eyebrow
Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the
study “An Inquiry into the Nature of the Pigmented Lesion Above
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Left Eyebrow,” A.B. Ackerman and S.
Lomazow, Archives of Dermatology, vol. 144, no. 4, April 2008,
pp. 529-32.
The winners are INVESTIGATOR BUZZ BROOKS, who wrote:
That blemish on Franklin D.R.
Was officially known as a scar.
But ’twas melanoma
With peculiar aroma
Made worse by the smell of cigar.
And investigator NAN SWIFT, who wrote:
“That eyebrow thing - it’s not bizarre,”
Said the doc, “Don’t you fret, FDR.
How bad could it be?”
Well, unfortunately,
That scar - it was not just a scar.
Here’s the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:
Through depression and war, he had led.
Then a brain hemorrhage hit. He was dead.
Sixty years have gone by.
Now two guys wonder why
There’s a lesion on FDR’s head.
———————————————————-
Severed Gecko’s Tail Competition
Severed gecko’s tails is the subject of this month’s limerick
competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that
illuminates the nature of this report:
“Flip, Flop and Fly: Modulated Motor Control and Highly Variable
Movement Patterns of Autotomized Gecko Tails,” Timothy E. Higham
and Anthony P. Russell, Biology Letters, 2009.
The authors, at Clemson University and the University of
Calagary, report:
“Many animals lose and regenerate appendages, and tail autotomy
in lizards is an extremely well-studied example of this…. We
used electromyography and high-speed video to quantify the motor
control and movement patterns of autotomized tails of leopard
geckos (Eublepharis macularius). In addition to rhythmic
swinging, we show that they exhibit extremely complex movement
patterns for up to 30 min following autotomy, including acrobatic
flips up to 3 cm in height.”
RULES: Please make sure that: (1) your rhymes actually do; and
(2) your poem is in classic, trills-off-the-tongue limerick form.
PRIZE: The winning poet will receive (if we manage to send it to
the correct address) a free, possibly severed, high-res PDF issue
of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one entry per
entrant) to:
SEVERED GECKO’S TAIL LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o marca AT chem2.harvard.edu
