If you were to give (male) students a Desert Eagle™ automatic handgun (replica) to handle* for a few minutes, would their testosterone levels rise? If so, would they be more inclined to dose a cup of water with FRANK’S® RedHot® sauce which they believed another (male) subject would have to drink?* Such questions were asked […]
It has been said that (in some cases) court judges are more lenient on those accused of crimes if the date of the court hearing falls on the defendant’s birthday. But can things also work in the reverse direction? What if, for example, the judge’s favorite football team have just lost a match? Would they dish […]
A French / US research team, who analysed the outcomes of more than 4 million court cases, found that, if you’re a defendant : Having a decision on one’s birthday reduces the sentence by 4 days out of an average total sentence length of 127 days If you’re wondering why a defendant may get more […]
This is the first study to investigate the investment properties of LEGO as an alternative asset class from micro- and macro-financial perspectives that overcomes many survivorship bias limitations prevalent in earlier research. Explains author Savva Shanaev of Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK, in a 2020 paper for the Journal of Risk Finance, Volume 21 Issue 5. The […]
Cold, wet, and wobbly though it may be, the blancmange has not been ignored by academia. Many of its aspects – culinary, historical, technical, sensory, and mathematical – have been the subject of scholarly explorations. Here are some example studies : ● From Fast to Feast: Analyzing the Ubiquitous “White Dish” Called Blancmange by Erin Sunshine […]
“When a passenger rides behind an operator of a motorcycle, the only way to hold on is to wrap the passenger’s arms around the torso of the operator.” What could be done to improve the passenger’s grip? Californian inventor Dale Lafayette Marks has just been awarded a US patent for his Multi-rider vehicle retention apparel […]
Are there fewer robberies in urban areas where the streets are quite steep? A question investigated in a 2020 research project by Professor Cory Haberman and Professor James Kelsay entitled : The Topography of Robbery: Does Slope Matter? Journal of Quantitative Criminology volume 37, pages 625–645. “Steeper street blocks may have fewer robberies because they make the physical […]
I amna fou’ sae muckle as tired – deid dune. It’s gey and hard wark coupin’ gless for gless Wi’ Cruivie and Gilsanquhar and the like, And I’m no’ juist as bauld as aince I wes. If you recognize the first stanza from Hugh MacDiarmid’s 1926 poem ‘A Drunk Man Looks At A Thistle’ you may also […]
“ Many people happily eat the same foods for breakfast day after day, yet seek more variety in the foods they eat for lunch and dinner.“ But why? Carey K. Morewedge [pictured] who is a Professor of Marketing and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar in the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, US […]
Supermarket shopping carts (trolleys) tend to have horizontal handles – would people buy more things if the handles were parallel – like a wheelbarrow? New research from City University of London and the University of Innsbruck suggest that the answer could be ‘yes’. In an experimental study : “supermarket shoppers purchased more products and spent […]