Improbable Research

The first major international seminar which drew more than 80 participants from across the globe to discuss the depth and profundity of the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) agreed that GNH combines spirituality with secular science of technology and that the global community should protect and enhance it.

So says a report from Bhutan, where the seminar on “Operationalization of Gross National Happiness” was held. Read the entire report here.

Professor Buddhadasa Hewavitharana, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Peradeniya, was specially invited to participate. read about that here.

(Thanks to investigator V. Wieloch for bringing this to our attention.)

“It is striking that the drying process familiar to most people, namely, that of drying laundry hung from a clothes line, does not seem to have been investigated in a quantitative, scientific manner.” With those words, and many more, Eric B Hansen introduced a generation to the subtle mathematical pleasures of damp cloth….

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian. Read it here.

Group wiggling, shrunken heads, and the incomprehensibility of soprano singers — research about all these topics is highlighted in the “AIRhead Research Review” column in the current issue (vol. 10, no. 2) of the Annals of Improbable Research.

Read the column here.

Science is a social activity — very social. That’s why the Annals of Improbable Research has a brand-new regular column called “Socially Scientific.”

Read the very first appearance of “Socially Scientific here.

If you are intrigued about “On The Existence of Mikhailov,” if you can’t stop wondering about Mikhailov, if you crave more info no matter how tenuously connected it may be, then read the article “Notes on the Existence of Mikhailov.” It appears in volume 10, number 2 of the Annals of Improbable Research. Read the article here.