How authentic is the Indiana University School of Informatics’ Inauthentic Paper Detector? Is it (as scoffers scoff) an inauthentic detector of paper or (as some detectives detect) an authentic detector of inauthentic paper or papers? The inventors make a claim that some may find cryptic: We are trying to detect new, machine written texts that […]
Month: July 2006
Sexiness, with a possible limitation
Essential nutrients such as vitamins can act as pheromones to attract the opposite sex — at least in lizards. Such is the carefully worded conclusion in a July 19, 2006 BBC News report about research by Jose Martin of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. [NOTE: the image at right is from the […]
Cheese, Cheese, Charalambides
January 1995 was a signal month for the understanding of cheese. Maria N Charalambides and two colleagues, JG Williams and S Chakrabarti, published their master work: A Study of the Influence of Ageing on the Mechanical Properties of Cheddar Cheese. It showed a refined way to do mathematical calculations about cheese…. So begins this week’s […]
A brain, a heart, a gut
You have a brain as well as a heart and a gut. You’ll be a better functioning organism if you use all three. So said Eugenie Scott in her short, brilliant talk at the Mount Holyoke College when she received an honorary doctoral degree.