Gretchen Holtzer, Mary Parent, Priti Pharkya and Aron Parekh, the noted chemical engineers, have joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. The Magnificent Four are at Penn State University. The institution are (or soon will be) renowned for their abundance of luxuriantly-flowing-haired researchers.
Month: March 2005
Prohibitions at Palm Cove Beach
A prodigiously prohibitive sign at Palm Cove Beach, in North Queensland, Australia, has just been added to the Prohibititions Competition. (Thanks to Nicole Bordes for sending it in.)
The exceptional switcheroo
The case of the switched Mars rover alpha-particle X-ray spectrometers may exceptional. That is, it may be a rare exception to a general rule of thumb. Maybe. The rule is that it’s not a good sign when a news report contains a sentence like this: Squyres is "not embarrassed at all" about the slip-up with […]
All about “Dude”
The "Soft Is Hard" column in the special Yawning Issue of the Annals of Improbable Research tells all about, or at least a little about, a recent research report entitled "Dude." The column presents other examples, too, of why the "soft" sciences are the hardest to do. And right next to the "Soft Is Hard" […]
Karaoke relief
A scientific experiment may look like torture and sound like torture, yet still be free of legal ramifications. At the University of Hong Kong, Edwin ML Yiu and Rainy MM Chan did an experiment that smacks of torture for the participants, the experimenters, and anyone within earshot. Their published report has a title that evokes […]
Gently falleth
Some say "The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree." We, given the news (and the video clip) from Berkeley and from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, say "The ant doesn’t fall far from the tree."
Don’t look, don’t tell
Many scientists are confused. We have a remedy for them. At a recent science meeting in Washington, DC, we encountered many scientists, from the United States and elsewhere, who said they were confused and troubled. "What," most everyone was asking, "has happened to the US government’s policy about science?" The question has a happy answer. […]
March mini-AIR
The March issue of mini-AIR just went out.
Hidden sexuality of the yawn
Wolter Seuntjens recently (sucessfully!) defended his Ph.D. thesis. He has now published a specially edited version of it: "The Hidden Sexuality of the Human Yawn" in the special Yawning Issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.