What might be the advantages of “square” cigarettes? In 1999, the US tobacco company R.J Reynolds employed the Opinion and Marketing Research firm Delta Research to investigate. Participants of two “Consumer Idea Generation” (CIG) focus groups from Indianapolis were paid $35 each (plus dinner) to list (amongst other things) possible advantages of “Square” cigarettes. The findings : […]
About: Martin Gardiner
- Website
- http://wikenigma.org.uk
- Profile
- Curator : Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of Unknowns
Posts by Martin Gardiner:
Embodying a new cross-sectional paradigm for a smokable rod [square cigarettes patent]
“A cigarette typically is employed by a smoker by lighting one end thereof and burning the tobacco rod. The smoker then receives mainstream smoke into his/her mouth by drawing on the opposite end (e.g., the filter end) of the cigarette.” – explains a patent granted to Big Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. U.S. patent 7,967,018 B2, […]
Canine Cleanroom Suit [patent]
“It is desirable that dogs that perform jobs in restaurants, hospitals or other health care facilities, and manufacturing areas wear distinctive garments to indicate that they are service dogs and not unauthorized pets. Such garments are preferably also protective for the dogs and for the facility.” United States Patent 7975656 , assigned to Californian inventor […]
‘Centrifugal Bed Rotator’ [new patent]
Inventor Vern Ader has just been granted (Aug 10th 2021) a full US patent for his ‘Centrifugal Bed Rotator’. The new invention is a progressive development of his Gym & Rehabilitation System Designed for Space – in that it can centrifuge not just one, but two people at the same time. The present invention provides […]
De-humanizing Humanoid Robots [study]
Humanoid robots are often experienced as unnerving, a psychological phenomenon called the “uncanny valley.” The Uncanny Valley is quite a problem for ‘humanoid’ robot designers – who currently struggle to make their robots 100% convincing. A newly proposed solution involves ‘dehumanizing’ ‘humanoid’ robots. By, for example, removing the robot’s face to expose bare electronic circuit […]
Honqi “Car Face” design implications [study]
Over the years, a number of scholars have reported on the implications of ‘Car Face’ design. For a recent example, see the work of Xueyuan Zhang, Liqing Huang and Mingzhu Li of the School of Art, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China, who report, in E3S Web of Conferences 236, 02042 (2021) regarding Research on the Shape […]
Beer mats make bad frisbees [study]
If you’ve spent any significant amount of time trying to use a beermat as a frisbee, you’ll know that they’re not very suitable. What you may not know, is the physics behind why they’re not. A research team from the Helmholtz Institute of Radiation and Nuclear Physics and the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the […]
The Frog Test [Humour Study]
As some have pointed out, analyzing humour can be a bit like dissecting a frog – the frog always dies. Nevertheless, Professor Ori Amir, who is not only Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychological Science at Pomona College, US, but also a stand-up comedian – has suggestions for a new humour analysis method, which, he says, […]
Painfully fashionable : The consequences of wearing pointy shoes in medieval England [study]
It’s known that if you wear overly pointy shoes for long periods, you’re likely to damage your feet How long has this been going on? Was it prevalent in, say, medieval Cambridge, UK? To find out, researchers examined the human remains of 177 adult individuals (11th > 15th century) from four cemeteries located in Cambridge, […]
nfMRI (non functional MRI) machine resources
The functional MRI Laboratory at the University of Michigan, US, is one of the few research centres to have their own fully non-functional MRI machine – which they call the “Mock Scanner”. The “fake” scanner is fitted with a set of loudspeakers which can faithfully replay the not-inconsiderable noise of a real, working, MRI machine. […]