This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Flowery polymorphic perversion—… Grażyna Gajewska at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland is one of the few academics who is now overtly studying polymorphic perversion on a broad, societal level. Her recent treatise “Polymorphic perversion of human […]
“An Investigation of Variables in a Fecal Flotation Technique“, by M.R. O’Grady and J.O.D. Slocombe, is one of the research studies featured in the article “Icky Cutesy Research: Gills Want Fun, Collection Oil“, in the special Formulas & Recipes issue of the magazine (Annals of Improbable Research). Read the article online. And if you like, subscribe […]
This year’s 24/7 Lecturers are hard at work preparing their lectures for the 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. These lectures — a complete technical description of a subject in 24 seconds, followed by a clear summary in seven words — demand more skill and thought than the audience may realize. Here is a […]
In the new issue of The Coleopterists Bulletin (vol. 77, no. 2, 2023), Sarah M. Smith reviewed the book The Surprising Lives of Bark Beetles, by Jiri Hulcr and Marc Abrahams. Here’s part of Smith’s review: The authors’ love of bark beetles is clear and infectious and the reader will likely come away smitten with these tiny beetles…. I […]
On Saturday, July 1, 2023 the first-ever Improbable Dramatic Readings event in Poland will happen, as part of Bazyliszek, in Warsaw. Mikołaj Kowalewski will compere. BACKGROUND: What Is/Are Improbable Dramatic Readings? Here’s what happens at this kind of event. Luminaries (of various wattage) each do brief dramatic readings from seemingly absurd, genuine research studies and patents. […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: A sick experiment —The phrase “what goes up must come down” isn’t obviously relevant to the insides of a cat. The countervailing “what goes down must come up” is, when that cat has swallowed something of dubious […]
Roland Eberlein tells some of the history of how people tried and sometimes succeeded at supplying the wind for bigger and bigger pipe organs. His essay “Technique of the Organ, ” published by the Walcker Foundation for Organ Research, goes into detail about some of the largest improvements: “The sound of the medieval organ must […]
This week’s ambiguously-worded science headline: “Profitability and Cost Analysis for Contract Broiler Production in Turkey,”by Suleyman Karaman, Yavuz Taşcıoğlu, and Osman Doğan Bulut, Animals, vol. 13, no. 13, 2023. The authors are based at Akdeniz University and Iğdır University, Turkey.
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Not such a comfort — To see how a man’s stress levels and diet might alter his shape, one might give comfort food to a stressed rat and study its penis. Researchers at the State University of […]
“The Nonequilibrium Nature of Culinary Evolution,” by Osame Kinouchi, Rosa W. Diez-Garcia, Adriano J. Holanda, Pedro Zambianchi, and Antonio C. Roque, is one of the research studies featured in the article “Food Formulas and Recipes“, in the special Formulas & Recipes issue of the magazine (Annals of Improbable Research). Read the article online. And if you […]