Justin Schmidt, an emotional fellow, took notes when he was notably stung by a different species of ant, bee, or wasp. Schmidt then turned those notes and emotions into little almost-poems, each just 15 or 20 words long. Those sting-pain notes and emotions, read aloud by QI elves, overflow this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. […]
Month: May 2016
Much to chew on about many meats
Mark A Jobling [pictured here] of the University of Leicester writes about the genetic underpinnings of exotic meats. His essay, called “Flogging a dead horse“, appears in the journal Investigative Genetics [2013, 4:5]: People eat mules, as well as donkeys and horses, and in meat contamination testing, mule meat would appear to be horsemeat, because of the […]
“Overtaken by curiosity” Users Really Do Plug in USB Drives (which) They Find
“We investigate the anecdotal belief that end users will pick up and plug in USB flash drives they find by completing a controlled experiment in which we drop 297 flash drives on a large university campus. We find that the attack is effective with an estimated success rate of 45–98% and expeditious with the first […]
Jake Eccles joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)
Jake Eccles has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). He says: I hope that all scientists are driven not only to better understand our world, but also by a desire to improve the lives of its occupants. Certainly, research demonstrates incredible potential to contribute to such far-reaching goals, and yet I am struck by the degree […]