Three weeks ago, Barry Sharpless presented the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize for Engineering to Gen Matsuzaki and colleagues, who tried to discover the most efficient way for people to use their fingers when turning a knob. He also presented the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine to Marcin Jasiński, Martyna Maciejewska, Anna Brodziak, Michał Górka, […]
This TV ad for Alka-Seltzer evokes the spirit of gastroenterology in the decade 1960-69.
There will be lots of improbable science story sharing in fourteen Italian cities this Friday night, September 30, 2022. Stories about real science. Stories filled with mystery, confusion, excitement, and lots of intriguing uncertainty. This is a new part of SHARPER Night in Italy — Friday night, September 30. (What, you may ask, is SHARPER? […]
Research studies about luck and about bedbugs are featured in the “Icky Cutesy Research” column in the special Rotation and Spinning issue (volume 28, number 5) of the magazine. You can read that article free online. Better still, buy a copy of the issue (it’s in PDF form). Or better better still, subscribe to the magazine!
If you somehow are not already in love with bark beetles, we self-interestedly recommend this wonderful new book: The Surprising Lives of Bark Beetles, by Jiri Hulcr and Marc Abrahams.
A research study about lights, food, a rotating chair, and earmuffs is featured the “May We Recommend” column in the special Rotation and Spinning issue (volume 28, number 5) of the magazine. You can read that article free online. Better still, buy a copy of the issue (it’s in PDF form). Or better better still, subscribe […]
Ten new Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded at the 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. The winners, and a description of their work, are included on the list of all Ig Nobel Prize winners (1991-2022). Each winner has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK. The faces you see in the image here […]
This teaser is about one minute long. The ceremony webcast begins at 6 pm (U.S. eastern time), on Thursday, September 15, 2002, and will be a little longer than that. Details — and the webcast itself — will be on the ceremony web page.
A new mini-opera called “The Know-It-All Club” will premiere as part of the 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday, September 15, 2022. The theme of the 2022 ceremony, evinced in the opera and other bits, is: Knowledge. The ceremony will be webcast. You can watch it here at http://www.improbable.com The opera plot: Every […]
“Rotation of Whirling Dervishes” is a review column about some of the scientific research that focuses on whirling dervishes. Specifically: (1) Physics of the Skirts of Whirling Dervishes, and (2) Whirling Dervish in an MRI Tube. The column appears in the special Rotation and Spinning issue (volume 28, number 5) of the magazine. You can […]