Category: Arts and Science

Robert J. Thornton, Professor of Economics at Lehigh University, writes to tell us about his latest research: On Putting Students To Sleep: A Classroom Policy Proposal This article is not about the euthanizing of undergrads, although many of my students would probably consider this to be the ?humane? thing to do to them during my […]

Investigator Maddalena Feliciello has gathered pointers to a few guides for insect lovers (that is, for those who love to eat insects). One is at Iowa State University, one at Mississippi State University, another at Ohio State University, and a fourth is at the University of Kentucky.

Cats, cats, cats, cats, cats, cats, cats. For those who cannot get enough about cats, we have posted a free, downloadable version of the special Cats Issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

We have just received the 2005 edition of one of our favorite calendars — Jim Middleton’s Uncle Stan Pharmacy Calendar.

Let’s Corporation has a device that is said to make flowers talk and sing.

The Marcellus Mystery, described in the October mini-AIR, concerns a research paper that seems to have been co-written by three (3) people each named Lenora Marcellus. It prompted this letter from Alan W. Harris: I don’t know about Marcellus, et al., but here’s another for you: Alan W. Harris and Alan W. Harris, “On the […]

Investigator D. Edwards writes in reference to a citation we presented in mini-AIR 2004-07. The citation is: “http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~fwelter/flyingsnails.htm”>Flying Snails — How Far Can Truncatellina (Pulmonata: Vertiginidae) Be Blown Over the Sea?” C. Kirchner, R. Kr?tzner and F.W. Welter-Schultes, Journal of Molluscan Studies, vol. 63, 1997, pp. 479-87. Investigator Edwards offers this: Here in bosky Penge […]

For a new, graphical approach to understanding the behavior of economists, try clicking on the button here. (Thanks to investigator Martin Meder for bringing this to our attention.)

We asked Pek Van Andel to review the world’s most provocative book about serendipity. Pek is an Ig Nobel Prize winner (for leading the team that took the first MRI images of a couple’s sexual organs while those organs were in use.) Here is his review. ————– Serendipity: the Prince?s Road This Begriffsgeschichte, this funny, […]

The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded for things that first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK. The name “Ig Nobel” is said to be derived from a pun in the English languge. The pun draws out only one of several very different aspects of Ig Nobility. That pun seems to crop up in […]