Fracking Blamed for Increasing Teenage Pregnancy Rates:
That is the title of an article I wrote, which will be published in next month's edition of the Journal of Irreproducible Results:
mediacosm.com
jir.com
Comparing Apples and Oranges: Normalizing Competitive Eating Records across Food Disciplines
By Mike Wooldridge, UC Berkeley School of Information
March 8, 2006
This article won a prize from the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
Background
Once relegated to county fairs and half-time shows, competitive eating is becoming a mainstream phenomenon. Web sites devoted to the avocation list more than 80 major contests held in 2005 in specialties ranging from tater tots to tiramisu [1]. The more popular events are televised and can include prize money in excess of $20,000 [2]. There are even professional eaters with fan clubs [3].
However, it can be a challenge to compare performances across eating disciplines since different contests often have very different rules. For example, at the top hot-dog eating event [4], competitors swallow as many wieners as they can over a period of 12 minutes. At the championship for birthday cake [5], on the other hand, contestants race to consume five pounds of cake in the least amount of time. For accurate comparison, results from these events must be normalized....
