Who is a new Mythbusters — meticulously debunking pernicious (or just plain silly) myths about science? A report by William Weir in the Hartford Courant — in his profile of Pepsi’s science laboratory (which is in New Haven, Connecticut), reveals the secret: Eric Milgram, senior fellow at the lab, used to work in the pharmaceutical […]
Year: 2010
To a louse on a lady
This week’s Classic Louse Poem is Robert Burn’s “To A Louse. On seeing one on a lady’s bonnet at church.” It begins: Ha! Whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie? Your impudence protects you sairly, I canna say but ye strut rarely Owre gauze and lace, Tho’ faith! I fear ye dine but sparely On sic […]
Asparagus Smell — Wee Progress
For Marcel Proust, one of the after-effects of eating asparagus, was that it “…transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume.’’ This unusual phenomenon is well known by a (disputed) percentage of asparagus-eaters who are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be able to nasaly detect the vegetable’s odorous metabolites in their (or others’) urine. And […]
New Year’s message to authors
As New Year’s day approaches, take a look back to Peter Tyrer’s words of advice, in 2007, to prospective authors for the British Journal of Psychiatry: A NEW YEAR MESSAGE TO ALL OUR AUTHORS No, your failure to have your paper accepted for publication is not because you have offended me or another of the […]
December mini-AIR
The December issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: Odd Balls; Agony-of-the-Leaves Tea Insights; UK Tour Cities; Stinkbugs-in-Cotton Competition; Accuracy-of-100.4% Poet; Singers/Musicians for our Cambridge Science Festival Show; A Bid to Identify a Skull; etc. Mel [pictured here] says, “It’s swell.” (mini-AIR is the simplest way to keep informed about Improbable and Ig Nobel […]
Happily stuck in time and space
En route from Vancouver to Australia on Dec. 30, 1899, the captain of the S.S. Warrimoo spotted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At midnight, he stopped the ship at the intersection of the international date line and the equator. At that moment, the ship was straddling two different hemispheres, days, months, years, seasons, and centuries, all at […]
That Royal purveyor of asses’ milk
“Who was the purveyor of asses’ milk referred to in that sign?” inquires investigator Ernie Leighton, referring to a recent post about old London signs. The answer, as describe in Littell’s Living Age, volume 100: Mrs. Dawkins, Purveyor of Asses’ milk to the Royal Family : 66, Bolsover Street, New Road. Mrs. Dawkins enjoyed a […]
Miles: More hair
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) member Miles Rzechowicz has sent in a more splendiferous photo of his hair (and other parts of himself).
Voyeurs swooping beneath Nottingham
The good folks at the Nottingham Caves Survey marry spelunking, archaeology, laser scanning, and computer-generated-imagery to record and display some of the hidden wonders — caves and tunnels and other passageways — that statically wriggle and wander beneath the streets and buildings and hills of Nottingham, England. The video below is one of several they […]
Video: Dynamics of Hula Hooping
Ariel Kraakman demonstrates the dynamics of hula-hooping, on the day after she first took up the practice. In so doing, she unknowingly honors the research of scientists Ramesh Balasubramaniam and Michael Turvey, who were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in physics in 2004 for their study “Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula Hooping” […]