Troy Hurtubise, who was awarded the 1998 Ig Nobel prize in safety engineering for developing and personally testing a suit of armour that is impervious to grizzly bears, has a new book out. Here’s a passage that brings together some of the main themes. Troy tells secrets about the most advanced version of his suit, […]
Month: May 2011
Alternate everything: The joy of viXra
For those days when the scientific community (and its arXiv repository of new science papers) isn’t enough for you, for those days when you itch for a different way of seeing things… for those days, dear reader, there’s something new, something effulgent. It’s called viXra. The In The Dark blog tells us about this exciting collection of […]
FK cosmetics (with camel urine)
Can camel urine be used as an ingredient for cosmetics? Yes it can, according to Dr. Faten Abdel-Rahman Khorshid, an associate professor at the King Fahd Medical Research Center, Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University (KAAU), Saudi Arabia. The doctor, who recently featured in an Improbable article Camel urine – its […]
Honing in on who sounds gay
A press release from the American Institute of Physics reports (and thanks to investigator Hugh Henry for bringing it to our attention): Vowel Sounds Give Cues to Sexual Orientation College Park, Md. (May 18, 2011) — It is not uncommon for us to draw knee-jerk conclusions about people based on how they speak. Those snap judgments aren’t […]