Robin Abrahams, our psychology editor observes: Scientists have proved, beyond much doubt, that prayer is valuable. Yet another study has been done on the efficacy of prayer: this new one, with over 1,800 subjects, showing yet again that prayer has no direct effect on the health of the person prayed for. The New York Times […]
Month: March 2006
By science, buy gum
Wrigley, the world’s leader in chewing gum, announced today the establishment of the Wrigley Science Institute to study whether chewing gum may help consumers as a tool in weight management, stress relief and increasing alertness and concentration. “The emerging science behind these benefits supports what we’ve heard anecdotally from consumers for years…,” said Surinder Kumar, […]
Greatness is borne
Some people are born great, while others just thrust it upon themselves As in baseball, a reviewer must “call it as he sees it”. My call is that this book is pretty awful. However, reviewers sometimes nod off, missing qualities in a book with cover plaudits by Kurt Vonnegut, V.S. Ramachandran, Floyd Bloom, James Watson […]
Executive alignment
Executive alignment — the concept is either vaguely magnificent or magnificently vague. But which? To find out, one need only ask an expert: BOB FRISCH, MANAGING PARTNER Bob has 20 years of consulting experience spanning multiple industries and issues, with particular emphasis on corporate vision, strategy, growth, customer focus and executive alignment.
Canine reactions to the Mona Lisa
“Canine Reactions to the Mona Lisa” is a new study by the same team who, more than a decade ago, published “Feline Reactions to Bearded Men.” The new report appears in the March/April issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.
Of Craig and Cyrano
Robin Abrahams,our psychology editor, files this observation from the field: Here’s an ad someone placed on Craig’s List. That someone should have read Cyrano de Bergerac… These things never work out the way you plan them: I am looking for someone to help me compose a very important letter. I need someone who can write […]
Initially wrong?
The great initial discovery of 1999 – that a man’s monogram could cause his early death – was dismaying. But maybe it was all a mistake. A second, very careful look, carried out by two sceptical economists, says it just ain’t so…. So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.
Fat-heads
A study to be published in the journal NeuroImage implies that fat people have, well, fat brains. The study is: “Brain abnormalities in human obesity: A voxel-based morphometric study,” Nicola Pannacciulli, et al., NeuroImage, 2006, doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.01.047. The researchers are based in Phoenix, Arizona.
Hazards of sleep
Sleep bring many hazards. News reports this week highlight two of them — one for married couples, the other for teenagers. The March 26, 2006 issue of The Hindu reveals the first hazard: Uttering talaq three times in sleep lands couple in soup Siliguri, March. 26 (PTI): A Muslim couple in Jalpaiguri district have been […]
Wine-Aging and H. Tanaka
A new, quite short day dawns for wine, conditionally implies a January 21, 2006 report in Mainichi Daily News: “We can now electrolyze young wine and ship bottles of fine wine out in no time at all,” declared [Hiroshi] Tanaka, president of Japanese startup Innovative Design and Technology Inc., which runs a small laboratory in […]