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Fun, friendly JIR is a great escape from the harsh and the hassle. Benefits stretch far beyond the easy chair. Many items are perfect to post, or to show around, or to include in a presentation. Many spark new and interesting thoughts. Great gift for scientists, doctors, engineers, and professors. Subscribe
 
Words And Unwords
www.wordsandunwords.com

WILDWORDS board game!

All the fun that Scrabble® should have been. More words, more strategy, more bluffs, more twists! Great gift! Top-quality tiles and trays. Including US shipping: $36.95. eMail or snail-mail your order.

The stars above are beautiful, and so is The Stars Above starfinder!

Gleaming, sturdy blue acrylic, 14 inches wide. Dome-shaped, like the real sky. Dial up any time on any date. Find the constellations, the Milky Way, planets, and major stars. Great gift! Little distortion between 30° and 50° North latitude. $99.95 includes base, booklet, and UPS ground shipping within US. eMail or snail-mail your order.

Stretchable Graph Sheets!

JIR exclusive! JIR was first to suggest them, way back in 1964, and now makes them real. Our graph sheets stretch a point so much you could be a politician. [not recommended] Each kit contains these 8.5 x 11 inch sheets:

  • Stretchable Spandex grid
  • Invariant transparent grid to use atop:
  • Stretchable blank Spandex to draw your own curves on
  • Suggestions

Use your own clipboard and binder clips to anchor sides you don’t want to stretch. $9.95 including US postage. eMail or snail-mail your order.


Brian Malow

Brian Malow performs widely on the comedy club circuit. He is a life-long fan of science and science fiction. His intelligent, imaginative comedy plays delightfully with language, and is spiced with a healthy dose of science. His clean, energetic style makes him a favorite at colleges and corporations (such as Apple, Dell, 3M, and Texas Instruments). www.sciencecomedian.com

Astronauts aboard space shuttle STS-44, while in orbit, listened to his Neil Armstrong routine. And they laughed.

Your group can laugh, too. A whole lot. eMail Brian Malow to arrange a performance for your own special event: brian@butseriously.com

Geek Comic- Nerdo Capo Di Capi Tutti, accessible Geekiosity, family fun.

Norm Goldblatt performs at nightclubs, comedy clubs, corporate events, private parties and fundraisers. His humor touches on technology, science, politics, and the human condition. Every show is different and peppered with jokes from the day’s news. His quips were quoted regularly by the late great Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle and his jokes are heard on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Born with Asociotechnophilia, he redirected the ravaging effects of this disease toward developing skills as a physicist, teacher, engineer and entertainer. He has 2 head positions — towards the stars and towards his shoes — but get him onstage and power him with a spotlight, and his laser gaze will entrance you. www.normgoldblatt.com.
 

Advisors

Articles by or about our Advisors are especially welcome.

  • Acquisitions: Iona Lott
  • Ancient Medicine: S. Q. Lapius
  • Chocolate Pastilles: Emma Nems
  • Cooking: Kit Chen
  • Dieting: Su Garfree and Lo Phat
  • Exaggeration: Stu Pendous
  • Expertise: Noah Lott
  • Foolishness: April Furst
  • Go-To Person: Helena Handbasket
  • Higher Levels: Sophie Stikated
  • Improvements: I. Noah Bettaway
  • Japanese Video Cartoons: Annie Mae
  • Multiplicity: Manny Moore
  • Omphalology: Belle E. Button
  • Radio: Ann Tenna
  • Real Pisser: Mick Turition
  • Recombination: Ann Thology
  • Repetition: Yetta Nudder
  • Satire: Tung N. Chique
  • Tinkering: Putter and Fiddle
  • Translations: Rosetta Stone
  • Redundancy: Wunna Levin
  • Information: Fora Levin
  • Trafficking: Fyva Levin
  • Convenience: Sevna Levin
  • Emergencies: Nyna Levin
  • OneUpsmanship: Twelva Levin
  • Star Clusters: Emma Levin

 

Scientific Curiosities and Anomalies

Compiled by William R. Corliss, The Sourcebook Project

Ancient Infrastructure: Remarkable Roads, Mines, Mounds, Stone Circles. 412 pages, paperback. $21.95.

Mysterious Universe: Astronomical Anomalies. 716 pages, hardback. $19.95.

Biological Anomalies: Birds. 486 pages, hardback. $27.50.

Neglected Geological Anomalies. 333 pages, hardback. $18.95.

Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature: A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies. 419 pages, hardback. $24.95.

Science Frontiers: Some Anomalies and Curiosities of Nature. 1977-1994. 356 pages, paperback. $18.95.

Science Frontiers II: More Anomalies and Curiosities of Nature. 1994-2004. 340 pages, paperback. $21.95.

Prices include US shipping. Canada: add $3/book; overseas, add $10/book. eMail or snail-mail your order.
 
Anthology Recapitulates Hilarity:

This Book Warps Space and Time

JIR’s new anthology is a fast-paced frolic of humorous and quirky tidbits in science, math, academe, bureaucracy, and witty wordplay. Open this book and you're chuckling within seconds. More than 250 entries ponder and pun the practical and peculiar. Edited by JIR’s Norman Sperling, published by Andrews McMeel. 289 pages, 6 x 6 inches (but only the dimensions are square), soft cover. In US stores October 2008. A great gift! custom-inscribed any way the customer wants, $15.99 including US postage. eMail or snail-mail your order.

Few Thrills Compare to Weather at its Worst

Extreme Weather

by Christopher C. Burt

We often hear that the day was the hottest, coldest, wettest, or snowiest on record. Is the climate really becoming more extreme as a result of global warming? The facts are in this book, along with bizarre weather events: heat bursts, electrified dust storms, snow rollers, pink snowstorms, luminous tornadoes, falls of fish and toads, ball lightning, and super bolts. Great gift! Revised edition, 320 pages, 110 photos, 47 maps, 66 tables and graphics, extreme weather data for >300 US cities. Soft cover. 2007. $29.95, custom-inscribed by author Chris Burt any way the customer wants, including US postage. eMail or snail-mail your order.

What Your Astronomy Textbook Won’t Tell You

by Norman Spering

Textbooks don’t tell all they should, and sometimes inhibit learning. Norm Sperling teaches what textbooks won’t tell:

  • Too sure of things? Learn which Unknowns still stump us.
  • Outdated viewpoints? Reset your mindset.
  • Need to weed out bunk? Bigtime debunking explains why science can tell how nature works.
  • Overly serious? Chuckle at bloopers.
  • Fresh, intriguing ideas and viewpoints, many of which apply to other sciences as well.

From the review in JRASC: "a rollicking read. It is fun! The language is down-to-earth and jargon-free. The writing style is straightforward and friendly. The book does not take itself too seriously. You will find it hard to put down because it just keeps going, like the Energizer bunny, with interesting topic after interesting topic."

183 pages, paperback, 2002. $26.95 custom-inscribed by the author any way the customer wants, including US postage. eMail or snail-mail your order.

satricon

Creation/ Evolution Satiricon

by Robert Dietz and John Holden

Witty, hard-hitting satire, delightfully illustrated with many droll cartoons. A classic book, long out-of-print. Paperback. $39.95 while the co-author’s last box of new copies lasts, including Holden’s custom-inscription any way the customer wants, and US postage. 8.5 x 11 inches, 140 pages, 1987. eMail or snail-mail your order.
 
The Journal of Irreproducible Results
2625 Alcatraz Avenue #235, Berkeley, CA 94705
+1 650-200-9211 · normsperling@gmail.com

Journal of Irreproducible Results and JIR are trademarks of Norman Sperling.
Copyright 2004 Norman Sperling. All rights reserved.