Dirt is on the minds of legislators in the American state of Georgia. Georgia Assembly bill #1443, co-sponsorted by six legislators, comes with the official description: A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Article 3 of Chapter 3 of Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to state symbols, so […]
Month: February 2006
Mathematical beard estimate
How many mathematicians have beards? If you want a rough approximation, survey the Oberwolfach Photo Collection of mathematicians. Do so before anyone else does, and you will be the first scholar to have accomplished this task in this way.
Uncle Joe’s shorts
Olga Gurova studies the cultural history of underwear in the Soviet Union. “When I am talking about Soviet underwear,” she says, “I mean the underwear that appeared after the 1917 revolution.” Dr Gurova is based at European University in St Petersburg. During the 2005-06 academic year she is visiting the US. Her lectures and writings […]
Further frog-sniffing find
ABC News reports (on February 22, 2006) a further discovery by the team that won the 2005 Ig Nobel Biology Prize: Smelly Frogs Don’t Get Insect Bites Researchers have found that some Australian frogs create their own insect repellent, resembling rotten meat and others roasted cashew nuts or thyme leaves. The research team, which includes […]
Flatness reminder
To honor National Pancake Day, a February 22, 2006 Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World report remindingly raises and answers the baseline question: How flat?: Research completed in 2003 proved what U.S. Interstate 70 drivers have suspected all along ? that Kansas is flatter than a pancake. Researchers from Southwest Texas State and Arizona State universities analyzed the […]
Dancer or octopus?
Dancer or octopus? That’s the question. Compare the two videos, and decide. Dancer. Octopus.
Saving energy, suddenly
Here, apparently, is how the energy was produced to renew the Renewable Energy Lab’s funding.
Q&A – toilet water purity & preference
Jasmine Roberts’s water research may shed new light on an old question. The old question is “Why do dogs drink water from toilets?” The new illumination can be seen second-hand (or perhaps second-eye) in a February 13, 2006 Tampa Tribune report: Benito Middle School student Jasmine Roberts examined the amount of bacteria in ice served […]
Shark-free shark-filled waters
Investigator Allan Coukell sent in an example of the “chicken noodle soup is 95% chicken-free” phenomenon. A press release from the University of Aberdeen begins: Oceans are 70% shark free — Absence of sharks from abyssal regions of the world’s oceans Marine scientists have discovered that the deepest oceans of the world would appear to […]
Engineered cookie parts list
“Holiday Cookies the Way Engineers Intended” is a recipe that begins: Chocolate Chip Cookies Ingredients: 1. 532.35 cm3 gluten 2. 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3 3. 4.9 cm3 refined halite… (Thanks to Investigator David Stipp for bringing this to our attention. Investigator Stipp adds: “Interesting point about the care that must be taken due to possible exothermic […]