Friday Funnies: Funny PubMed Citations

Here's a fun one for a Friday afternoon.

Jennifer Barlowe, my Ascension Librarian colleague in Kalamazoo, Michigan, is retiring and clearing out some old files.  She shared the following list of PubMed citations with funny titles that she says can be good for livening up a training session.  I use a few of them myself (#6 and #9-1/2)!

Some of the articles are serious; Some are tongue-in-cheek.

I hope they give you a chuckle!

Items 1-13 of 13 (Display the 13 citations in PubMed)

1.	Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Younger and older adults. Radvansky GA, Pettijohn KA, Kim J. Psychol Aging. 2015 Jun;30(2):259-65. doi: 10.1037/a0039259. PMID: 26030773
2.	Did too much Wii cause your patient's injury? Sparks DA, Coughlin LM, Chase DM. J Fam Pract. 2011 Jul;60(7):404-9. PMID: 21731918 Review.
3.	Head and neck injury risks in heavy metal: head bangers stuck between rock and a hard bass. Patton D, McIntosh A. BMJ. 2008 Dec 17;337:a2825. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2825. PMID: 19091761 Free PMC article.
4.	Fresh squeezed orange juice odor: a review. Perez-Cacho PR, Rouseff RL. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2008 Aug;48(7):681-95. doi: 10.1080/10408390701638902. PMID: 18663618 Review.
5.	A clinical trial gone awry: the Chocolate Happiness Undergoing More Pleasantness (CHUMP) study. Chan K. CMAJ. 2007 Dec 4;177(12):1539-41. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.071161. PMID: 18056618 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.
6.	Harry Potter and the curse of headache. Sheftell F, Steiner TJ, Thomas H. Headache. 2007 Jun;47(6):911-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1526-4610.2007.00665.x. PMID: 17578544
7.	Caring for manikins. Ward M. Anaesthesia. 2007 May;62(5):538. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2007.05075_19.x. PMID: 17448087 No abstract available.
8.	"Here's egg in your eye": a prospective study of blunt ocular trauma resulting from thrown eggs. Stewart RM, Durnian JM, Briggs MC. Emerg Med J. 2006 Oct;23(10):756-8. doi: 10.1136/emj.2006.035501. PMID: 16988300 Free PMC article.
9.	Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Smith GC, Pell JP. Int J Prosthodont. 2006 Mar-Apr;19(2):126-8. PMID: 16602356 Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial. Yeh RW, Valsdottir LR, Yeh MW, Shen C, Kramer DB, Strom JB, Secemsky EA, Healy JL, Domeier RM, Kazi DS, Nallamothu BK; PARACHUTE Investigators. BMJ. 2018 Dec 13;363:k5094. doi: 10.1136/bmj.k5094. PMID: 30545967 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.
10.	Nodding and napping in medical lectures: an instructive systematic review. Rockwood K, Patterson CJ, Hogan DB. CMAJ. 2005 Dec 6;173(12):1502-3. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.051157. PMID: 16330654 Free PMC article. Review.
11.	Use of ultrasound to assess Cheddar cheese characteristics. Benedito J, Carcel JA, Sanjuan N, Mulet A. Ultrasonics. 2000 Mar;38(1-8):727-30. doi: 10.1016/s0041-624x(99)00157-2. PMID: 10829761
12.	D'oh! An analysis of the medical care provided to the family of Homer J. Simpson. Patterson R, Weijer C. CMAJ. 1998 Dec 15;159(12):1480-1. PMID: 9988570 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
13.	Killer pop machines. Spitz DJ, Spitz WU. J Forensic Sci. 1990 Mar;35(2):490-2. PMID: 2329341 Do you know of some funny PubMed citations we can add to the list?

Pets of WHSLA: Bailey

Submitted by Karen Hanus—

Bailey only came to live with me in the last two years, but we couldn’t be closer even if I’d known her from puppyhood.  She follows me everywhere, goes berserk even if I just walk out to go to the mailbox, and can’t stand to be separated from me.  It’s kind of sweet, but can be annoying!

 

She’s a 10 year-old Chocolate Lab, but my iPhone thinks she’s a Weimaraner or a German Shorthaired Pointer. Go figure.  Maybe I should do one of those Embark DNA tests on her; maybe the iPhone knows something I don’t!

 

Bailey loves long, thin plush dog toys.  She gravitates toward whatever is the last one I bought her.  But she still has her favorites. They’re all in a crate and she will dig through it on her own looking for that specific one she wants. Surprisingly, she’ll also put toys back into the crate!  I’ve never had a dog that’ll pick up after themself before. 

 

She demands belly rubs and will bark incessantly when she thinks she deserves a treat. But, I’m a pushover, so I give in. Her favorite treat is pumpkin mix. I will give it to her in a Kong if I want to keep her busy more than two seconds. She can be a handful, but I still love her! 

 

Free Electronic Resources in libraries conference: March 5, 2025 (12-4 pm CT)

If you work with electronic resources in libraries, the annual (free) Electronic Resources Minnesota conference is one to check out. Registration is now open. 

While the program hasn't been released for 2025, past topics have included:

• Licensing
• Acquisitions
• Troubleshooting & maintenance
• Cataloging & metadata
• Link resolvers
• Discovery 
• Collection development
• Open access & open educational resources (OER)
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, & accessibility 

 

 

An Information Professional Buys a House

From Hayley Severson: My fiancé Isaac and I have been on the hunt for a house in Milwaukee for years. Of course, when fantasy comes before money, you start your shopping a little early.

In late fall 2023, we decided to pursue the idea of purchasing a house in the winter/early spring of 2025. If you have purchased a house before, or even if you haven’t, you may be thinking: why on earth? Moving in a Wisconsin February sounds like a slushy nightmare, and there can’t be any good houses to buy during the winter because everyone waits until May to list, right? Well, the former point we know and regretfully accept. But the latter is one we set of to explore: are there houses worth buying in winter? And do their prices, potentially lower than a summer listing price, make up for the lack of inventory?

Enter: spreadsheets.

Isaac and I began what we called the Chart and the Rubric. The chart is pretty simple: every house that went onto market in a neighborhood we were interested in each month, roughly January through March, was charted in our spreadsheet.

 

January house log

 

 

 

 

 

February house log

March house log

Notice how our hypothetical ask price was getting less competitive with the real sold price as the months went on? Interesting! That said, we hypothesized that we were getting pickier with each house we saw, so that bias should be accounted for (apologies, no double blinding here).

You will notice the “Rating” score in column G. This is the individual house’s results from the Rubric: a scoring system we created to consistently compare houses against our preferences.

 

The rubric items are weighted by importance to us, and all houses receive a pass or fail on each item. Location was our most important factor in buying a house, so a pass on location resulted in seven points; items like great backyard/kitchen/bathroom (i.e. required little changes/maintenance) were essentially bonus points and only garnered 1-2 points in the weighted score. Once each house either pass or failed the item, the weighted points were averaged out and created a final score.

Now, if you recall, the goal was to see if there are enough quality houses, for a good price, on the market in January-March to make moving through the winter sludge worth it. So, analysis:

This is our chart of number of houses by location (Wawa = Wauwatosa, BV = Bay View, SW = Shorewood), then the number of houses by location with a final rating of 4.12 or over.

 

This is a score histogram of all properties listed in January through March.

 

Finally, the share of properties with a score of 4.26 and above by month of listing.

So, what did we learn?

-          Inventory in our interested neighborhoods remained consistent enough across the months.

o   January: 18 (caveat: some of these properties were listed before January, but remained for sale in the month)

o   February: 15

o   March: 20

-          Cumulative ratings remained consistent across the months.

o   January: avg. 4.065 (3.07-4.78)

o   February: avg. 4.063 (3.12-4.78)

o   March: avg. 3.98 (3.33-5)

Conclusion: the evidence points to a high likelihood of available properties listed in January-March, in our interested neighborhoods, with at least a 4.0 rating. While inventory may not be as high, the quality of listed properties is sufficient to explore winter shopping – and perhaps take advantage of a less competitive market.

I would be remiss to not acknowledge that our experience is one shaped by the current state of the market, which is influenced by high interest rates, existing low inventory, and exponentially growing property values. We were very lucky to have the time and finances to be this over prepared and selective in our home buying experience.

So, you’re wondering… what did we do with all this data and knowledge? Are we off to explore the market this January, take our spreadsheets to open houses, and rubric every candidate we see?

Uh… no. We bought a house in December. It happens, you know?

Thank you for taking the time to read through an information professional’s process for buying a house. We are aware that we perhaps use spreadsheets as a coping mechanism, and I would recommend you don’t ask me about our working spreadsheets for planning a wedding. However, since others have asked, if you would find this data useful for your own house shopping journey we would be happy to pass it along – and have you join our dark, twisted world of formulas and rubrics!