First, and most importantly, we are a SOLAR POWERED tanning studio. Sun Lounge Tanning Studio is the first of its kind to take on the challenge of being more eco-friendly by reducing its energy demand using sun power. This may seem ironic since we naturally use the sun’s power to tan our skin outdoors, so […]
Month: August 2008
It’s not just crickets toads are waving at
Who waves what at whom, and to what effect, are the central questions in a study called Deceptive Digits: The Functional Significance of Toe Waving by Cannibalistic Cane Toads, Chaunus Marinus. Professor Richard Shine, of the University of Sydney, and his postdoc student Mattias Hagman published this nine-page report in the journal Animal Behaviour. The […]
Terror Management Theory and Female Bombshells
The authors, at the University of Arizona, Tucson, explain: Why do sexually appealing women often attract derogation and aggression? According to terror management theory, women’s sexual allure threatens to increase men’s awareness of their corporeality and thus mortality. Accordingly, in Study 1 a subliminal mortality prime decreased men’s but not women’s attractiveness ratings of alluring […]
Bad Breath: Big Breadth
“Halitosis Among Racially Diverse Populations: An Update,” S Rayman and K Almas, International Journal of Dental Hygiene, vol. 6, no. 1, February 1, 2008, pp. 2-7 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18205647). (Thanks to Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Eugenio Maria De Hostos Community College of The City University of New York, report: Halitosis […]
How Fleet the Feet of the Pachyderm?
“Biomechanics: Are Fast-Moving Elephants Really Running?” J.R. Hutchinson, D. Famini, R. Lair and R. Kram, Nature, vol. 422, no. 6931, April 3, 2003, pp. 493-4(http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/422493a). (Thanks to Jörgen Linder and Jost Weber for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, who are at various institutions in Thailand and the U.S., explain that: “Usually, the various […]
Statistics Lesson: Labored labor statistics
Correlation and Causation Around 20% of women who go into labor do so after eating Chinese food. Another 17% or so go into labor after eating Indian food. True facts. So writes Chad Orzel, hoping to demonstrate that statistics have the power to overwhelm thought.
Spectroscopic Discrimination of Shit from Shinola
We conducted an experiment to determine whether people can tell shit from Shinola. Shinola is a brand of shoe polish once manufactured in the United States. Today we care about Shinola only because it is part of the slang expression “doesn’t know shit from Shinola,” meaning “is completely ignorant.” Shinola is posited for comparison with […]
Ig Nobel tickets go on sale today
Tickets for the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony go on sale at noon today from the Harvard Box Office. [Location: Holyoke Center, Harvard Square. Telephone: (+1) 617-496-2222 ]. ******************** The ceremony will happen at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, on Thursday evening, October 2. The event always sells out, so it is advisable to […]
Starting backwards from scratch
“The Aetiology of an Unpleasant Itch,” J.D. Tenquist, New Zealand Medical Journal, vol. 86, no. 599, November 9, 1977, pp. 435-6. (That’s an excerpt from the article “May We Recommend,” published in AIR 11:1.)