The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

by Timothy C. Marzullo, Neuroscience Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Edward G. Rantze, Red Antze, Inc., Cumming, Georgia
Gregory J. Gage, Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

We here report for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, rat motor cortex neurons predicting the behavior of the American stock market. We implanted the motor cortex of the brains of rats with silicon electrodes. Using the correlation technique, we monitored the activity of neurons in our rats while simultaneously tracking the activity of stocks in the U.S. stock market.

Background: Hedge Funds
Hedge funds burgeoned in the early 1990's as a popular alternative to the conventional, and
more regulated, mutual funds. Hedge funds have often used alternative methods, such as
various human social factors, to predict future performance of the stock market. However, we here propose an alternative alternative method.

Methods: Correlation Analysis
For nine days, neural activity in the form of firing rates (which are the number of electrical discharges per second) from recorded neurons (n=94) of three rats were averaged each day as the rats learned to use a brain-machine interface¹ to obtain food pellets.

Mean firing rate data per day were stored using custom software (MATLAB, Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA), along with the closing stock prices for the same day for all corporations listed on NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange, and the American Stock Exchange (n=4195). Correlation coefficients were obtained using the corrcoef function of MATLAB, and only stocks that had significant coefficients (p <0.05, t-test) were labeled “responding” and further analyzed. See Figure 1 for a depiction of the behavioral apparatus.

Figure 1: Behavioral apparatus: rat trained on a brain-machine interface task while stocks simultaneously tracked.

Methods: Stock Market Prediction
Generalization (prediction) is important for any valid model. Thus, we decided to test our correlations by predicting future stock price. We analyzed a data set containing firing rates from an additional 20 consecutive trading days using a contrarian prediction model.² Firing rates obtained on day d (ƒd) were used to predict the future closing price on day d + 1 using the following rules:




where ƒd-1 is the firing rate from day d - 1 and a is the action taken, a = {buy; short; hold}. Stated simply, if the rats’ neurons increased firing rates, we would simulate a “short” of the stock; if the firing rates decreased, we would “buy” the stock. If no change occurred (± 1 impulse/s), we did not trade that day (hold). To determine the success of our predictions, the actual value of the stock was observed on day d +1, and we calculated our profits and losses. Brokerage fees were not included in this analysis

Results
We found that 74 stocks were responsive to the firing rates of our rats. Figure 2 shows an example of one stock (COKE, Coca-Cola Bottling Company Consolidated) that was positively correlated with the rat neurons. Table 1 groups the responsive stocks by sector. Though interesting clusters emerge in the financial and technology industries, the theoretical implications are beyond the scope of this paper.

Figure 2: Coca-Cola Stock Price (red) and average firing rates of neurons (blue) from rat motor cortex over 9 days in 2004. Correlation coefficient = 0.704.

In our prediction experiments, we found a similar number of stocks that responded to a lag of one day (n=68). Figure 3 shows the output of the stock trading simulation for one exemplar example stock (ASFI, Asta Funding, Inc.). Figure 3A indicates the results of the predictions, while Figure 3B shows our return on investment using the directives provided by the contrarian predictive model.

Discussion
For our analysis, we adopted the standard practice in neurophysiology where researchers will record a population of neurons, say 500, and find 50 that respond to a certain stimulus. The researchers will then decide to focus on the cells that showed responses and subject these to further statistical analysis. Thus, based on the work of our colleagues, we believe our methods are sound.

We found that stocks correlate with the firing rates of motor cortex neurons in rats. We also generalized our model to predict future stock price, and we made $435 from an initial $1000 investment in 20 days by using neuronal firing rates to predict whether to buy, short, or hold shares in Asta Funding, Inc


Figure 3: Results of predicting closing stock price of ASFI on day d + 1 from average firing rates on day d. A. Output of contrarian prediction model. B. Simulation of US $1000 investment using trade information obtained from predictions.

Conclusion
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson said in a 1967 declaration to the U.S. Senate that buying a mutual fund is worse than throwing darts at a dartboard. As a consequence, index and hedge funds are now popular. We say that if you are not using a rat motor cortex model of stock price, you might as well be using a mutual fund.

Appendectal Discussion
We are on the verge of a paradigm shift we call the Gage / Rantze / Marzullo (GRM, or the Generalized Revenue Model) Motor Cortex Rattus norvegicus Theory of Societal Urges. The neurons of our rats are in some mysterious way tied to humans’ purchase patterns which ultimately manifest as fluctuations in the American Stock Market.

The Gaia hypothesis, proposed by James Lovelock in the 1960’s, states the Earth entire is a living organism.³ The data presented here are consistent with this theory. We are all tied in a great circle of life,⁴ where our hopes, dreams, aspirations, triumphs, despairs, boredoms, and loves are inextricably linked to the creatures of the Earth. Research in 1934 proved that the solar cycles of 1929 were correlated to the closing stock prices of the London and New York stock exchanges of the same year.⁵ Though we do not have access to rat motor cortex firing rates from 1929⁶, our future experiments will do a triple correlation between rat motor cortex firing rates, the American and London Stock Markets, and the 2006 solar radiation flux.

We focused on rats in this study, but we would not be surprised if the stock market was correlated to the behavior of American White House squirrels, Jamaican fruit bats, Tasmanian devils, and New England codfish. As a final note, we wonder what would happen to the stock market should species become extinct. Given Earth’s current global biodiversity crash and mass extinction crisis,⁷ future human economic success may be neither assumed nor assured.

Notes
Results from the study were previously presented at the 2005 annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C.

Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors of this study do not personally own any stocks in Asta Funding or Coca-Cola, unless one includes index funds that represent the whole stock market.

Table 1: Market Sectors and the mean Pearson’s correlation coefficients of responding stocks.

References
1. Brain-machine interfaces are devices that are controlled by the self-modulation of brain activity. The rat data presented here were acquired as part of a broad experiment examining brain-machine interface algorithm designs. “Naive Coadaptive Cortical Control,” Gregory J. Gage, Kip A. Ludwig, Kevin J. Otto, Edward I. Ionides, and Daryl R. Kipke, Journal of Neural Engineering, vol. 2, no. 2, 2005, pp. 52-63.

2. “Profitability of Short-term Contrarian Strategies: Implications for Market Efficiency,” Jennifer Conrad, Mustafa N. Gultekin, and Gautam Kaul, Journal of Business Economic Statistics, vol. 15, no. 3, 1997, pp. 379-86.

3. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, James Lovelock, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 1979.

4. The Lion King, Walt Disney Pictures, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 1994.

5. “Solar and Economic Relationships,” Carlos Garcia-Mata and Felix Schaffner, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 49, no. 1, 1934, pp. 1-51.

6. Curiously, 1929 was also the year that Hans Berger published the first recordings of human brain activity in his research attempting to understand the physiology of a youthful telepathic experience with his sister.

7. “Declines of Biomes and Biotas and the Future of Evolution,” David S. Woodruff, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 98, no. 10, 2001, pp. 5471-6.

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This article is republished with permission from the January-February 2005 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can purchase back issues of the magazine or subscribe to receive future issues, in printed or in ebook form. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift! Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

(Video Link)

These two friends are awfully cute together. Too bad they just aren't very good at sharing, but hey, they still make better friends than Tom and Jerry.

Via Cute Overload

Patricia Hill owned 104 bottles of valuable whiskey that came with the mansion she bought and converted to a historic inn in PIttsburgh. The Old Farm Pure Rye Whiskey was distilled in 1912, and was hidden under a staircase. The property had been sold several times before Hill found it during a remodeling project.   

Hill did not immediately return calls for comment. [Police chief] Pritts said that Hill put the whiskey bottles in the basement while the main floors were being renovated. John Saunders, 62, was a caretaker who lived in the basement and was expected to safeguard the booze.

"You know, to watch over them and keep them secure. I guess that was a mistake," Pritts said.

Hill discovered that 52 of the bottles had been emptied in March 2012, and reported it to police. All four cases of whiskey had been emptied within about a year, Pitts said.

Saunders denied that he consumed the vintage alcohol, but police tested the empty bottles to see if they matched Saunders' DNA. After seven months of testing, police confirmed that Saunders' DNA was found on the bottles, and charged him with felony theft and receiving stolen property, Pritts said.

The whiskey was valued at $102,400, but it is doubtful that restitution will be made. Saunders' attorney told the court that Saunders is waiting for a liver transplant. Link -via Uproxx

All my life I've heard jokes about eastern Kentucky communities that were wedged between mountains and got so little sunshine that folks put mirrors on the mountains to reflect light into the valleys. Now the Norwegian town of Rjukan is actually doing just that! Rjukan is situated between two tall mountains, which limit the hours of sunlight. Between September and March, the town is in constant shadow. But now huge mirrors, carried in by helicopter, will be installed to reflect sunlight onto the town square.

Three mirrors with a total surface area of about 538 square feet will sit at an angle to redirect winter sun down into the town, lighting up over 2150 square feet of concentrated space in the town square. A similar idea exists in the Italian village of Viganella, which has used brushed steel to reflect light since 2006.

A computer located in Rjukan's main town hall office will operate the solar-powered system, which continually monitors the movement of the sun and calculates the optimal positioning of the German-made mirrors to keep the square—which the city plans to turn into a skating rink—bathed in sunlight. The project will set the Norwegians back 5 million kroner (about $835,000), but 80 percent of the funds will come privately and the system will run primariy on solar and wind power.

If it works, residents of Rjukan will have to go out on the ice to get some sunshine! Link 

Bruce Lee, painted with milk (Be milk, my friend?)

Forget pen and paper - French artist Vivi Mac speed paints using food and wicked wit to create some of the most iconic images of famous historical figures, celebrities, and fictional characters. Take a look:

Jack Sparrow, painted with rum

Timbaland, painted with thyme (Thymbaland?)

Soccer player Thierry Henry, painted with rice

Ice Cube, painted with - what else? - ice cube and salt

Mona Lisa, painted with BBQ sauce

Obama, painted in sugarcane (sucre de canne - the pun is "Yes we can(ne)"

Gandhi, painted with chocolate milk

Steve Jobs, carved on an apple (of course!)

Amy Winehouse, painted with wine

Michael Jackson, painted with children's milk (white, no less)

In black licorice, Yoda is

Forrest Gump, painted with chocolate

Martin Luther King, painted with coffee

Link: Vivi Mac on Facebook

In 1994, the internet was still in its infancy. A fairly new software company called Netscape set up a live webcam, trained on its fish tank. It was only the second live webcam feed on the internet. In the nineteen years since, the tank has grown from 40 gallons to 600 gallons, the cameras have been upgraded, and Netscape took it offline in 2008. Within a year, Lou Montulli, the Netscape employee who originally rigged up the Fishcam, rebuilt the webcam site and brought it back online. You can enjoy watching the fish yourself, in living color during the hours that the lights are on (9AM to 7:30PM PDT). Link -via Geekologie

Perfect with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Wait. Wrong serial killer, but close enough.

The talented Annabel de Vetten of Conjurer's Kitchen created this gruesomely awesome "skin suit" cake, inspired by the serial killer Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. It's made from vanilla cake, dark chocolate ganache, black cherry filling and pure horror.

Link - Thanks Emma!

(YouTube link)

YouTube member hinamitetu builds robots that do gymnastics. Here you see Gymnast Robot #16 perform a high bar routine and then dismount with a quadruple backflip -and land perfectly. They don't always work this well, as you can see in his blooper video.

(YouTube link)

-via Metafilter

It's the gateaway triathlon: 23-year-old Illinois man named Brion Adam Kriss ran, rode a bike, and swam in the ocean to flee the police.

Kriss was suspect of having a large knife which he had displayed during a prior incident in Delaware. He lost control of his car and crashed into a utility pole in the area of Jamestown Road on Coastal Highway. Due to the crash, one person had to be rushed to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Kriss then ran away, stole a bicycle and then dived into a marsh. He assaulted several Police Officers as they tried to arrest him. 

For all of his troubles, Kriss got tasered, sicced by a police dog, and fired on by rubber bullets. Oh, and instead of a medal, he won (or technically, he lost the triathlon) handcuffs and incarceration: Link

Hello Kitty Japanimation Socks

Attention Hello Kitty fans! Are you looking for the purr-fect socks to strut your unique style? Behold the Hello Kitty Japanimation Socks from the NeatoShop. This great pair of knee socks features Hello Kitty dressed in cute Japan anime style.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Footwear. 

Link

(YouTube link)

Everyone has their own story, their own joys, fears, and worries. If we could see what they are carrying around, would we treat them differently? The Cleveland Clinic produced this video and presented it to the staff. It was picked up by the Everyone Matters campaign. Link -via the Presurfer

Twinkies have returned to American grocery stores! But once you've eaten a few crates to take the edge off, you should try to get creative. Beth Klosterboer has a great food craft that you can make using Tootsie Rolls and chocolate frosting. You can find her instructions at the link.

Link

A woman in Whitefield, Greater Manchester, UK, rode up to a McDonalds drive-through on a horse. The drive-through clerk refused to serve her, citing company policy. That apparently did not sit well with the woman, because she then walked inside the outlet …still on horseback! The horse pooped on the floor, the police were called, and she was issued a ticket.

A spokesman for Whitefield police said on their Facebook page: “The sight and smell of this caused obvious distress and upset to customers trying to eat, as well as staff members.

“Officers arrived at the location and woman was issued a fixed penalty notice for causing alarm and distress to other customers and staff.”

It may be an inconvenience, but when I decide to go inside a restaurant instead of using the drive-through, I usually leave my car outside. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Flickr user Cindy Cornett Seigle)

Men tend to be more generous when they have women in their families. It goes beyond a wife making decisions about giving: Danish CEOs are likely to pay their employees less money after they have a baby boy, but not after having a baby girl. Fathers with daughters tend to vote more liberally than men with sons or no children. And how many sisters one grew up with makes a difference, too. Psychologist Paul Van Lange at the Free University in Amsterdam conducted an experiment in generosity. The participants had a choice in splitting money with someone they did not know:

(a) You get $25 and your partner gets $10.

(b) You get $20 and your partner gets $30.

The first option is the selfish one; you’re claiming most of the resources for yourself. The latter option is more generous as it involves sacrificing a small amount ($5) to increase your partner’s gains by a much larger amount ($20).

The players expressed consistent preferences in each of the nine rounds they played on Professor Van Lange’s watch. The data showed that players who made the more generous choices had more siblings. The givers averaged two siblings; the others averaged one and a half siblings. More siblings means more sharing, which seems to predispose people toward giving.

And once again, gender mattered. The givers were 40 percent more likely to have sisters than the people who made more self-serving, competitive choices. (There was no difference in the number of brothers; it was the number of sisters, not siblings, that predicted greater giving.) And Professor Van Lange’s team pointed to another study showing that the more sisters a father has, the more time he spends raising his own children. After growing up with sisters, men who have opportunities to give are more likely to do so.

The exact mechanism of the difference can be debated forever, and some of the possible theories are laid out at the New York Times. Link -via Digg

(Image credit: Rachell Sumpter)
 

If you live to fly--or just want to be able to eject from your office quickly--then Motoart has furniture for you. This studio of master craftsmen makes fine furniture from old airplane parts. You can view much more of their work at the link.

Link -via Unconsumption

(YouTube link)

Four cats investigate an addition to their home -a stuffed bobcat! There's a dog, too, but he stays way back in the distance, just in case. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Lunarbaboon's son has the right idea. Why limit yourself to just a little screen?

Link

Here's a clever way to keep track of how old the coffee is, using two foam cups. Good idea, huh? This was seen at a nurses station in a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Redditor Jackytar saw it and decided to try this out at the emergency room where he works. Lo and behold, here's what happened:

More proof that nothing is so foolproof that a better fool can't find a way to mess it up. The day shift blames the night shift, and vice versa. Link

(Video Link)

Like most of us, Frincu Mihai periodically enjoys watching videos of himself when he was younger...the only difference is that most of us don't keep trying to give our younger selves kisses on the cheek.

Via Cute Overload

Your chances of escaping poverty differ quite a bit by what region of the United States you live in. The map shown plots the chances of a child born into a family in the bottom fifth of income in America rising to the top fifth in income during adulthood. The data is from a study by a group of economists from Harvard and UC Berkeley.

Climbing the income ladder occurs less often in the Southeast and industrial Midwest, the data shows, with the odds notably low in Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus. By contrast, some of the highest rates occur in the Northeast, Great Plains and West, including in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Seattle and large swaths of California and Minnesota.

“Where you grow up matters,” said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. “There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.”

That variation does not stem simply from the fact that some areas have higher average incomes: upward mobility rates, Mr. Hendren added, often differ sharply in areas where average income is similar, like Atlanta and Seattle.  

The original study found that intergenerational income mobility is "modestly correlated" with tax expenditures, but a lot of the variation is due to other factors yet to be studied. See more and larger maps at the New York Times. Link -via Metafilter

Felipe Frog Picnic Lunch Box

Are you looking for the perfect lunch box for your little prince or princess. Behold the Felipe Frog lunch Box from the NeatoShop. This great insulated lunch box unzips to turn into a useful lunch time placemat. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Lunch Boxes. 

Link

Artist Eric Yanhker modified Spock's salute from "Amok Time." Got the Vulcan 7-year itch? Play baseball to work it out of your system. 

Link -via Juxtapoz

(YouTube link)

Eleven-year-old Nada Al-Ahdal lives in Yemen. Nada was raised by an uncle, and didn't even see her parents for  years until she was of an age that men were willing to pay for her hand in marriage. She ran away from her parents' home when she found out she was contracted to be married. Rather than face kidnapping charges, the uncle went to the Ministry of the Interior’s family protection department. After an investigation, the parents relinquished Nada to her uncle's care. In this video, Nada vents her feelings about what she went through, and asks for the world to consider other girls in the same situation. Link  -via The Daily Dot

Photo: Matthew Graham Wilkinson

You know what don't mix? Koala and water, as this photo over at The Telegraph clearly shows:

This koala was sleeping in a tree when it was rudely awakened by a gardener who decided to water his trees. Matt Wilkinson said: "There was a heatwave in Adelaide recently and temperatures reached up to 40C. We use the sprinklers and garden hose to wet the house and surrounding trees when it's hot to avoid a bush fire but when I watered one of the trees, this koala got a bit of a soaking. It was a boiling hot day so i'm sure it helped the koala cool down."

Link

The news is out that Kate Middleton -excuse me, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge- has been admitted to St. Mary's Hospital in London in the early stages of labor. We won't know for quite some time whether the new heir to the British throne is a boy or girl, but we can look back into the history of other royal births. Mental_floss has four stories of how it was done in the past, such as the custom of public witnesses to ensure that the royal baby indeed was born from a royal mother.

For hundreds of years, royal women gave birth in front of spectators. It was a big custom among the French royalty—poor Marie Antoinette was almost killed by the great crush of people who poured into her bedchamber at Versailles when the doctor shouted that the baby was coming. Contemporary reports claim that it was stiflingly hot, that it was impossible to move for spectators, and that some people were climbing atop the furniture for a better view. No wonder she fainted. (And no wonder the custom was abandoned soon after. Well, sort of: The royal mother still gave birth before a crowd of people—ministers, advisors, trustworthy types—just a smaller one.)

Read about other royal births, and be glad you're a commoner. Link

(Image credit: Carfax2/Surtsicna)

Update: It's a boy!

Chocolate-covered strawberries are one heck of a rich, sweet treat, but if they just aren't cakey enough for you, perhaps these chocolate-covered strawberry brownies by Chocolate Moosey will offer a happy medium between them and tasty, fudgey brownies.

Link

The following article is from the bookUncle John's Bathroom Reader Tunes Into TV.

Back before YouTube, the best way for an average Joe (or a not-so-average Joe) to get an audience was to book some time on a local cable-access channel. Here are some classic cable-access kooks from around the country (all of whom you can still see …on YouTube).

(YouTube link)

Program:Jonathan Bell

Location: Dallas (1992-93)

Details: Public-access cable has had more than a few televangelists -from the mild to the extreme- but none were quite like Jonathan Bell, a makeup artist who dropped everything to start a ministry on public access, reaching out directly to viewers at home, all of whom he thought needed to be "saved." What was unusual about Bell was his approach: He screamed at Satan, and about everything else, constantly. Here's a typical Bell rant (delivered, like everything else, in a constant shriek): "I read my Bible five to six to seven, eight hours a day. Every time I got a chance, my Bible tape is on in the car. Actually, I don't have a car right now, my car got stolen four weeks ago, and the Dallas police hardly do nothing to help me. I can't get my insurance money, either, so right now I'm bussing it."

(YouTube link)

 Program: The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Program

Location: Los Angeles (1985-2005)

Details: Once called "the most bizarre children's program ever conceived," this Los-Angeles-based public-access show was just like the title says -a Christian Science children's program. Without any irony or satire, the show addressed topics such as the danger of drugs and UFOs through the use of puppets that were variously described as "deformed," "frightening," and "creepy." Most of them were operated and voiced by David Liebe Hart, a self-described ventriloquist …whose lips were always moving. Amazingly, the show ran for more than twenty years (a favorite of viewers, not just children or religious types, who loved it because it was so bad). Hart went on to become a cast member of the bizarre Cartoon Network sketch show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

(YouTube link)

 Program:Let's Paint

Location: Los Angeles (2002-08)

Details: Artist John Kilduff created and hosted this "variety" show. Dressed in a paint-splattered suit, he simultaneously jogged on a treadmill, painted pictures, blended smoothies, and chatted breathlessly with callers.

(YouTube link)

 Program: Mustafio

Location: Queens, New York (1999-present)

Details:Mustafio consists of an image of a disembodied man's face, which stares, unspeakingly, at the viewer. While the head moves (or remains eerily still), it's accompanied by stream-of-consciousness voice-over monologues, read in a vague European accent, along with miscellaneous sounds, such as clanging and moaning. Completely unlike anything else on TV (and fairly unsettling), Mustafio became a cult hit in New York and has even spawned a couple of CD recordings of select monologues.

(YouTube link)

 Program:The Threee Geniuses

Location: Los Angeles (1996-2005)

Details: This was a true anything-goes show that happened in real time, live: The performers would arrive at the studio with no idea what they were going to do and just wing it. The result was what most viewers considered just plain bizarre, with eerie sound effects and music, randomly interspersed images, and psychedelic camera work. The show attracted members of Los Angeles's underground/fringe art community, and one of the most popular performers was Strangelyne, a transvestite bodybuilder with Tourette's syndrome. LA Weekly compared watching it to taking LSD.

(YouTube link)

 Program:The Lone Shark

Location: Bridgeport, Connecticut (1991-2001)

Details: Created and hosted by Jim Sharky and Sean Haffner, The Lone Shark was known for pushing the envelope of what was considered acceptable content for TV broadcasts. One particularly memorable episode was entitled "The Jeffrey Dahmer Children's Show" and featured the disembodied heads of the two hosts sitting inside a refrigerator; at one point, Sharky's head lip-synched to a recording of "Mack the Knife." That episode wasn't the one that pushed The Lone Shark off the air, however, After a ten-year run, the show was finally cancelled after an episode in which the hosts were using a file-sharing web application, as they periodically did, and downloaded and broadcast a brief segment of an extremely graphic porn video. Oops.

(YouTube link)

 Program:Chic-a-Go-Go

Location: Chicago (1996-present)

Details: Calling itself "Chicago's dance show for kids of all ages!" and hosted by Ratso, a puppet rat, this show is G-rated fun. Chic-a-Go-Go follows the same format as Soul Train and American Bandstand, but the dancers range from young children to senior citizens, and all wear their own colorful costumes. It's such an institution that it attracts big-name musical guests such as Question Mark and the Mysterians, Neko Case, and Plain White Ts (lip-synching to their hits, just like they would have on Bandstand).

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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Tunes Into TV. 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!