Research and other stuff that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: On the origin of carrots — Do you know where your carrot, if you have a carrot, comes from? A new study from the University of L’Aquila in Italy outlines one approach to finding out. “It […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: God’s recent works — What has God done lately? Professionally, much of God’s work these days aims to help humans fly more safely, more efficiently and more profitably. As head of the Institute for Aircraft Cabin Systems […]
Niels Berg Olsen sent this (fabulously) discerning note: I enjoyed reading your item on Greek cheek in your fabulous book This is Improbable, Too [Printed and bound in Denmark…”]. I notice a difference in the text in the book and in your news item in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/05/highereducation.research In the Guardian you wrote: “The report […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Deep Oesophagus — Scientists, as a group, like to think they behave in ways a little distinct from the herd. The herd, as a herd, likes to think so, too. From time to time, Feedback receives furtive […]
Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong were awarded the 1999 Ig Nobel Peace Prize, for inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower. (Patent WO/1999/032331, “A Security System for a Vehicle“) Now, in 2023, The South African news organization takes a look back at one of South Africa’s most spectacular but least financially rewarding inventions. […]
Just stumbled across a big box of press clippings from the 90s. Here’s Bill Lipscomb with the plaster cast of his left foot on display. This article in the Harvard Gazette on October 2, 1997, says: IG NOBEL FEET: William N. Lipscomb, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1976, holds his foot up against a display […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Down, with turtles and elephants — The fabled dominance of the hare by the tortoise has an underground counterpart of sorts in a look at turtles and elephants in times gone by. The elephants came out […]
“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: […]
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 […]
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 […]