Sometimes blond, sometimes blue University of Stockholm linguist Mikael Parkvall has just joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).
Month: November 2005
Foldable gecko and fly
Herman van Goubergen produced a downloadable, fold-togetherable origami gecko and fly on a wall. Here is a photo.
Howtoons and the flying girl
Howtoons are toons that tell how to do some particular thing — usually some spectacular technical kind of thing. One such thing can be seen in this AVI video of a little girl riding a hovercraft. The video was taken during the preparations for one of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies.
THOUGHT-STIMULATING QUIZ: Humor and the brain
Here’s a quick quiz, which we offer free for teachers who like to stimulate thought. Use it to do that very thing with your students. THE QUIZ QUESTION: Read the following explanation from a November 7, 2005 press release issued by Stanford University. How many different alternative explanations can you devise in sixty (60) seconds? […]
Cheers for pharma
Drug companies, some of them, have discovered a pool of well-schooled, well-groomed, cheerful people to hire as sales representatives, according to a November 28 report by Stephanie Saul in The New York Times: Anyone who has seen the parade of sales representatives through a doctor’s waiting room has probably noticed that they are frequently female […]
A Theory of Pretty Much Everything.
David Robert Leffler‘s "A VEDIC APPROACH TO MILITARY DEFENSE: Reducing Collective Stress Through The Field Effects of Consciousness" is what might be termed a Theory of Pretty Much Everything. Dr. Leffler is an impressively prolific writer.
Luxuriant hair from two continents
Chemist Joanna Slusky of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA and Claudio Salim of Paris, France have just joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).
How to write a crank letter
Today we received a crank letter that sets the standard for how to write a good one. Like every science-related journal, the Annals of Improbable Research receives a sufficiency of crank letters. Some are good crank letters, others are not so good. This particular crank letter is seven pages long, and handwritten. Honoring the tradition […]
Pictures at an Igsibition
The annual Ig Nobel issue of the magazine is at the printer now. Here is an advance look at one of the articles — the photo-spread general introduction to the goings-on at the 2005 ceremony. The magazine contains lots more photos, info, and what might best be described as "stuff." If you don’t often see […]
Equation-O-Mania: Beer Goggles
Everyone, or at least every news editor, loves an equation. Here is the latest entry in our thick file of equations that made the news. A November 25, 2005 BBC News single-equation-laden report begins: ‘Beer goggles’ effect explained Scientists believe they have worked out a formula to calculate how "beer goggles" affect a drinker’s vision. […]