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 […]
Category: Arts and Science
Research and other stuff that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
Murderous Twins Paradox, From the Wood, Alumni Decomposition
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 […]
Ducks and cats [advice from James Rankin, in 1906]
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 […]
‘Polarized World’ — Tombstones, Dragonflies, and Light
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 […]
Too Much Excitement Under Highway 87
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 […]
Can you hear the strains of an imaginary Bing Crosby?
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 […]
As the ball bearing turns / Pretty Sweet biting / Arithmomania
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here’s how each of them ends: Turning point—… And that paper, in its own turn, led to a study published this year in the journal Scientific Reports. It is called “Influence of roundness errors of bearing components on rotational accuracy of cylindrical roller […]
Sleeping in the Audience at Science Meetings
At least one co-author of this study stayed awake while the data for the research was being collected. Probably. The study is: “Dreaming During Scientific Papers: Effects of Added Extrinsic Material,” Richard F. Harvey, Melvin B. Schullinger, Alexis Stassinopoulos, and Erica Winkle, British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition), vol. 287, no. 6409, 1983, pp. 1916-1919. […]
The 2022 Heinz Oberhummer Award Ceremony (video): The Ig Nobel Prize
The 2022 Heinz Oberhummer award, for “outstanding science communication”, was awarded to the Ig Nobel Prize on November 24, at the Stadtsaal in Vienna, Austria. The ceremony was webcast. Here’s recorded video of it:
Bankman tops nominative determinism; Non-newtonian milk; Manly pursuit
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here’s how they begin: What’s in a name?—This month, Sam Bankman-Fried returned to the head of the nominative determinism parade of tech entrepreneurs, following his portentous appearance earlier in the year.…. Non-Newtonian milk—Research is “the mother’s milk of feeding [and] fueling the economy”, […]