The delightfully iffy game called “Fifty-Fifty Trivia” was created by Martin Eiger, who invents many concepts and games, using words and ideas as the main building material. Eiger is, among other things, our Limerick Laureate—you can see his limericks, in any issue of the magazine (Annals of Improbable Research, with each limerick describing something that […]
Category: Arts and Science
Research and other stuff that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
Sunflower Orientation, Solar Panels, and the Sun
Sunflowers have the reputation of all being dedicated to facing the sun. An Ig Nobel Prize-winning team has now tried to measure how well that reputation matches reality. They dispatched some drones and some software to do this. The research is documented in their new study “Mature Sunflower Inflorescences Face Geographical East to Maximize Absorbed […]
What Is High-Throughput Word Generation (HTWG)?
If you read the following brief passage, you might invent the question “What Is High-Throughput Word Generation (HTWG)?” The passage is from the paper “It׳s all Greek to me: Towards a broader view of food science and ‘creativity’ in gastronomy,” by Will Goldfarb, in the research journal International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science (vol. […]
Ig Nobel Prizes in the NY Times Crossword Puzzle
The Ig Nobel Prizes have again turned up in a crossword puzzle, this time as an answer in the May 3, 2022 puzzle in The New York Times. The clue for one of the across words is: 14 ___ Prize (satirical scientific award since 1991) By our lazy count, this is the sixth time the Ig […]
An Insect Photographer Who Is Scared of Insects
Louise Downham interviews someone who, despite and because of his fear of insects, now specializes in photographing them. The interview is in Fstoppers, a publication for readers who purchase photographic equipment. The interview begins: Terrified of creepy crawlies he may be, but Mofeed Abu-Shalwa has committed his career to photographing and researching tiny creatures. I […]
The Scholar of Wet Floor Signs
The scholars of wet floor signs commit scholarship to studying wet floor signs. Their web site displays pictograms, photos, and photo-realizations of many signs pertaining to wet floors. They are led by Elena Kamas, at Stanford University. (Thanks to Anna Beukenhorst for bringing this to our attention.)
The special Women (and Men) issue of the magazine
Volume 20, number 4 of the magazine is a special Women (and Men) issue. The table of contents, and a few articles, are online. You can, if you are daring, purchase a PDF copy of the entire issue. If you are really daring, subscribe to the magazine.
New Book of Pranks Pulled by Scientists
Il Pollo di Marconi (English translation: “Marconi’s Chicken”) is a new book that collects and savors pranks pulled by scientists (and/or their ilk). Journalist Vito Tartamella did the collecting and savoring. The book, which includes Tartamella’s own celebrated discovery of the stealthily published scientific papers by Stronzo Bestiale (English translation: “Total Asshole”), is in Italian. […]
Tracking the Air Exhaled by an Opera Singer
“Tracking the Air Exhaled by an Opera Singer” [by Philippe Bourrianne, Paul R. Kaneelil, Manouk Abkarian, and Howard A. Stone, Physical Review Fluids, vol. 6, no. 11, 2021] is one of the studies featured in “Viruses Research Review: Group Sex, Singer, Saint, Count“, which is a featured article in the special Viruses and Pandemics issue […]
Prize-winning Duck Biologist Quacks at Rotterdam Ban on Feeding Bread to Ducks
The city of Rotterdam plans to prohibit people from feeding bread to ducks. The news organization NRC reports, on April 7, 2022, about the pushback on that, especially from the city’s most eminent duck biologist. Here is a machine translation (into English) of that report: Doubts in Rotterdam about the usefulness of the ban on […]