“We found evidence that when men were manipulated to feel that they had a relatively small penis, they ranked sports cars as more desirable than when they felt relatively well endowed and that this effect was most pronounced in men 30 and over,” say the authors in this new study: “Small Penises and Fast Cars: […]
Charles DeLorey has joined the The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™ (LFHCfS). He says: I am a PhD student in mechanical engineering at Boston University, having completed my Master’s at Imperial College London (2021) and my BS in CS at Tufts University (2020). Charles DeLorey, MRes., LFHCfS PhD student in Mechanical Engineering Boston University […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Dogged hospital presence — Dogs should be kept out of human (that is, non-veterinary) hospitals – or, depending on circumstances, welcomed into them. Research papers make the case one way and another.“Towards dog-free hospital campuses in […]
If you were to design wings for flying fruit, how best to optimize the wing shape? If you don’t already know the answer to that, you might begin your knowledge adventure by reading this study: “Curving to Fly: Synthetic Adaptation Unveils Optimal Flight Performance of Whirling Fruits,” Jean Rabault, Richard A. Fauli, and Andreas Carlson, […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Double Jeopardy — … Jane Ridley assesses a tough legal problem in an Insider.com article with an extremely long headline: “Identical college twins were accused of cheating in an exam by signaling. They won $1.5 million […]
This advice about cats, from an artificial duck farmer — a farmer who raised ducks under artificial conditions — was published in 1906, in the book Natural and Artificial Duck Culture by James Rankin: Do Not Have Neighbors Too Near. Another source of discomfort was our neighbors’ cats. Now, we are eminently social in our […]
Many published research studies include list of “key words” — words that should or might help people (and help search engines) discover that the study exists. This new study includes an unusual word in its list of key words: “Endogenous opioid release following orgasm in man: A combined PET-fMRI study,” Patrick Jern, Jinglu Chen, Jouni […]
Here’s a teaser video for the film “Polarized World’: And some background info about it, from ELTE [Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest]: TRICKED INSECTS – AND WHAT WE CAN DO FOR THEM In 2016, ELTE researchers received the prestigious Ig Nobel prize for physics for the funniest research of the year . The award-winning publication of Gábor Horváth and György Kriska asked […]
The title of this study doesn’t say it all. But it says enough to make any thoughtful person want to take a look, and see what’s what: “Too Much Excitement under Highway 87,” D.E. Hook, R.L. Volpe, and C. Chamness, in Pipelines 2006: Service to the Owner, 2006, pp. 1-9. The authors begin their summing […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here’s how each of them begins: May your daze be merry — A recent study builds on more than half a century of experiments to see whether people think they hear Bing Crosby crooning White Christmas. Crosby’s recording of the song, released in […]