A book review by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff. Loving the Machine is Canadian science/technology writer Timothy Hornyak?s admiring look into the widespread, and deep, Japanese affection for robots. Hornyak also writes an entertaining blog of the same name. The book (published by Kodansha International, ISBN 4770030126, available now in Japan but not until September […]
Month: June 2006
Spider (plus battery) vs. woodpecker
The Birds-Away Attack Spider? is a battery-operated device that will chase away damage-causing woodpeckers. Activated by sound, the spider drops down on an 18 inch string while making a loud noise. That’s what the manufacturers say. They also manufacture and sell a special tool for installing the attack spider. (Thanks to Investigator Lloyd Fricker for […]
Dragon?s breath, flatulence, Egyptian mummy
“Many of these scents have been brought to you by Lancashire-based company Dale Air, who has for over 25 years re-created the delicious smells of melted chocolate, sizzling roast chicken, coffee, home-baking and sun-cream to the more pungent stenches of dragon?s breath, flatulence, an Egyptian Mummy and New York tenement housing from era?s gone by.” […]
Elinor Lichtenberg’s advanced hair news
Elinor Lichtenberg was one of the very, very few undergraduate science students admitted to the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Now, several years after joining LFHCfS, she has sent updated info: Here is a more recent photo of my hair. I am now a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego. Elinor […]
Explanation and/or orgasm
Alison Gopnik fans and orgasmic explainers alike recommend Gopnik’s study “Explanation as Orgasm,” published in the journal Minds and Machines (vol. 8, 1998, pp. 101-18). Many of them also mutter approvingly — though seldom in the same conversation — about Gopnik’s The Scientist in the Crib. (Thanks to Investigator Bob Marshall for bringing this to […]
June mini-AIR
The June issue of mini-AIR just went out. It features a World Cup Research Review, and other things. (If you would like to have mini-AIR sutomatically sent to your email box every month, please subscribe to it. It’s free.)
Economic punishment warmup
Who wrote the provocatively-titled report “Economic Variables Affecting Punishment Warmup?” Jeffery L. Arbuckle and Kennon A. Lattal, that’s who. The full citation is: “Economic Variables Affecting Punishment Warmup ,” Jeffrey L. Arbuckle and Kennon A. Lattal, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, vol. 28, no. 4, 1990, pp. 315-18.
Geographic disorientation nearlies
Here are poets and limericks who and that nearly triumphed in the Geographic Disorientation Limerick Competition. The competition was posed in mini-AIR 2006-05. The winner will be announced in mini-AIR 2006-06, which should appear a day or two from now. Each entry is an original limerick that illuminates the nature of this report: “Geographic Disorientation: […]
Annotated single people
“The Scientific Study of People Who Are Single: An Annotated Bibliography” is the work of Dr. Bella M. DePaulo. Dr. DePaulo is Chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the Spectrum Institute,? Research and Policy Division of the, American Association for Single People (AASP).
The monkey and: (a) the chimp; (b) the man
Interspecies communication between a monkey and a chimp is the subject of an old recording newly made available thanks to the Cylinder Preservation Project of the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. Interspecies communication between a monkey and a man is the subject of a study published [online May 17, 2006] in the journal Nature. […]