SAGE publications today (March 18, 2023) published this “Item of Concern” about “Bust Size and Hitchhiking” and other papers they published that were co-authored by Nicolas Guéguen [pictured here], of whom we have written much over many years (and about whom our friends at Retraction Watch also have written much): Expression of Concern The Journal Editors […]
Cola for Mice / Read a bicycle / Head Organ / Life in Salt
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Cola: a swell tale — … If you are a male mouse who drinks lots of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, and if you mainly enjoy reading manly adventure stories, get yourself a copy of the latest write-up from […]
Can’t Do That, Affixing-Eyes-to-Automobiles, 57 People and a Fake Food Buffet
Research studies about things people can’t do, about putting eyes onto the front of automobiles, and about 57 people and a fake-food buffet are featured in the “Improbable Research Review” column in the special Super-Advanced Theories issue (volume 29, number 1) of the magazine. You can read that article free online. Better still, buy a copy […]
Nuts
Nuts are prevalent in the Journal of Nuts. Some (perhaps all) of its articles have interesting authors. One, at least, of the authors of the following article is notably, almost nuttily prolific. That article is: “How Did Globalization Boost the Nuts Production in Indonesia?” Eko Hendarto, Sandhir Sharma, Maria Jade Catalan Opulencia, Mohammed Khudair Hasan, […]
Satish Kaushik, who helped living-dead Ig Nobel Prize winner Lal Bihari, has himself died
Indian filmmaker Satish Kaushik, who in 2003 helped Lal Bihari, founder of the Association of Dead People, accept the Ig Nobel Peace Prize — and who years later produced a feature film about the life and death and life of Lal Bihari — has himself died. This report in Business Standard brings the sad news: […]
Non-fossil / Quantum sentence / Unrelax music / Slime mold watch
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Fossil or beehive? — … And the snideness? That isn’t unusual, either. Nor is it new. In 1934, the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences printed a report called “The supposed fossil ear of maize from Cuzco, Peru”. Quantum […]
A Prospect of Success by Purposely Failing the 97th Time
Walking, a lottery, failure, frenzy, the number 97… this study has all of those, and perhaps other things as well: “Failure is Also an Option,” Antoine Amarilli, Marc Beunardeau, and Rémi Géraud, and David Naccache, in The New Codebreakers, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2016, pp. 161-165. The authors report: “The Nijmeegse Vierdaagse is the world’s most […]
Moss excitement / Astro on Burglary / ABBAisms / Safe Tandoori
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Moss excitement — “It’s not every day you can watch moss grow!” says a press release from the University of Wollongong (UOW), Australia. Too true. The details in the press release lead to an invitation…. Astronomers and […]
Chicken Chicken Chicken
Doug Zongker’s famous talk, delivered at the Improbable Research session at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in San Francisco. Video documentation by Yoram Bauman.
Coffee cosmetics / UK coffee enema gap / Abyss of lunacy / Bayesian delay
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Caffeine boost — … Though some folk choose to roast, brew and drink coffee, innovative scientists use the bean and its byproducts to make cosmetics. Fernanda Maria Pinto Vilela and her colleagues at Brazil’s Federal University of […]