Inspired by our quest to identify the author of the wonderfully vapid advertising slogan "Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible," investigator Dave "Maddog" Maddox discovered that the phrase inspired a poet to give birth to a poem that begins: The rain in Spain is bound to contain Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane… Our romantic quest was announced in […]
Month: April 2005
Boys will be boys
The “Boys Will Be Boys” column in the March/April 2005 issue of the magazine presents another health collection of research by and for adolescent males of all ages. One of the highlights this time is a splendid whopping new survey of colorectal foreign objects that appeared, more or less serendipitously, in a hospital in South […]
Readable little numbers
People who love numbers — truly love them — needn’t hesitate when asked the question: "What is your favourite book?" There is only one possible answer: A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, published by the Rand Corporation in 1955… So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian. [And a further note. […]
The power of a Big Band
"Before the Big Band, there was no space or time." So says what we presume, or at least hope, is a typo. It appears in a curious press release issued by the University of Helsinki. The press release is curious in that it’s not clear why the university decided to write or issue it. ADDENDA: […]