For New Year’s Eve, a traditional song: Beaker’s Ode to Joy: BONUS: David Attenborough’s rendition of “What a Wonderful World” (HT Margo Howard and Ann Crichton-Harris): BONUS: “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
Year: 2011
A knighthood for Geim—he of frogs, magnets & pencils
The man [pictured here] who was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for using magnets to levitate a frog (a feat he accomplished together with a man who already had a knighthood) and then ten years later was awarded a Nobel Prize for having used scotch tape to tease graphene layers from a pencil, has now been […]
Oddies in air & sea: Hitchcock, pelicans, & flying rays
Some oddities from the air and the sea: A new study about what got Into Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” birds: “Mystery behind Hitchcock’s birds,” Sibel Bargu [pictured here], Mary W. Silver, Mark D. Ohman, Claudia R. Benitez-Nelson and David L. Garrison, Nature Geoscience, vol. 5, nos. 2–3, 2012. Published online 22 December 2011. “On 18 […]
Scrutinising the FACS: Cheek Raiser & Lid Compressor
The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) was first described by Paul Ekman and colleague Wallace V. Friesen in their article entitled Measuring Facial Movement for Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior1(1) fall 1976. The authors’ goal “… was to develop a comprehensive system which could distinguish all possible visually distinguishable facial movements.” The system presents a […]
Ten Tops List [videos of spinning tops] — 2011
There are lots of top ten lists, but this is the first Ten Tops List. Here are ten videos of spinning tops that scientists find interesting and or amusing. [Want to take a whirl at learning the science of spinning tops? Download (free) Professor John Perry’s 1890 book Spinning Tops— The “Operatives’ lecture” of the British […]
Innovation Time Machine’s 6-minute joy ride
A hiply (and expensively_ dressed bearded man, not one—but two!—lava lamps, lots of quick video clips backed by catchy, cheesy music, in Italy. It’s a six-minute journey through time and space, sort of, looking at Ig Nobel Prize winners. It’s… Innovation Timemachine IGNOBEL di Ivo Mej: BONUS: Innovation Timemachine Techno Sex di Ivo Mej BONUS: A […]
Medical Mistakes in Medical-Themed Romance Novels
How realistic are the medical practices in medical-themed romance novels? Dr. Cornelis H. (Kees) Langeveld investigated. Dr. Langeveld chose to publish his results in a medical journal, rather than in a romance novel. His study is: “Medical Mistakes in Doctors Novels,” Cornelis H. (Kees) Langeveld, Nederlands Tijdschrift Geneeskunde, 2011;155:A4372. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether doctors novels give […]
Mathematicians’ Dilemma: anxiety vs. coffee
By tradition and for other reasons, some mathematicians spend some of their time wondering whether stress causes some of their sleeplessness or all of it, or whether coffee causes all of their sleeplessness or some of it, or whether they should direct their worry partly or fully toward something else. Next week, at a conference […]
A look back at the loudest penis
As 2011 fades into history, let’s take a look back at Dr. Windmill [pictured here] and the loudest penis of the year. That loudness rating pertains to the publicity received, as much as to the decibels produced. Here’s a BBC Report by Ella Davies, on June 30: ‘Singing penis’ sets noise record for water insect […]
Inventions to shoo livestock from railroad tracks, etc
Mark Frauenfelder writes, on BoingBoing: Why do cows and horses like standing on railroad tracks? Here are three inventions to encourage them to loiter elsewhere. One involves a jet of hot water, another adds a whistle to the water jet, and a third involves a humanoid automaton that waves its hands and strikes a gong. […]