The folks at Today I Found Out take a look at the Ig Nobel Prize-winning Pitch Drop Experiment: The 2005 Ig Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 — in which a glob of congealed black tar […]
Category: Research News
Research — on any and all subjects — that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
Rauks are Rocks
Tom Gill alerted us to this study, saying “I’ve been a geology nerd for fifty-plus years. I was today years old when I learned that a type of rocks exists which is officially named… rauks.” The study is: “Limestone Sea Stacks (Rauks) Record Past Sea Levels and Rocky Coast Evolution in the Baltic Sea (Gotland […]
Ringtones and Memories for Frog-Eating Bats
There’s something for almost everyone in this new study about an adventure involving ringtones and frog-eating bats: “Long-Term Memory in Frog-Eating Bats,” M. May Dixon, Patricia L. Jones, Michael J. Ryan, Gerald G. Carter, and Rachel A. Page, bioRxiv, 2022. The authors report: We captured 49 wild adult T. cirrhosus, individually marked them, and trained […]
An analysis of journal articles winning Ig Nobel prizes during 2011–2020
Dr. Andy Wai Kan Yeung (pictured here, below) of the University of Hong Kong analyzed several years’ worth of Ig Nobel Prize-winning studies. He published a paper telling how he did it, and what he found. You can download the paper. Here’s the citation: “Not just nickel-and-dime: An analysis of journal articles winning Ig Nobel […]
Laugh and then think: What it’s like to win the Ig Nobel Prize
The radio program Audacious with Chion Wolf [on Connecticut Public Radio] took a joyous, 50-minute adventure ride into the world of the Ig Nobel Prizes. Listen to it online: “Laugh and then think: What it’s like to win the Ig Nobel Prize” Here’s the Audacious summary of what you’ll hear: Almost 1000 people have won […]
Musical Instrument Distinguishes between Diethylene Glycol and Glycerol (and more)
In the hands of a scientist, musical instruments can do many sorts of things. This study tells how some instruments can be used to distinguish between different kinds of physical materials. “Musical Instruments as Sensors,” Heran C. Bhakta, Vamsi K. Choday, and William H. Grover, ACS Omega, vol. 3, 2018, pp. 11026−11032. The authors, at […]
Reading on a Smartphone, and Sighing
If you are reading this on a smartphone, please monitor your sighing activity. As you read, and as you sigh, consider the details presented in the following study: “Reading on a Smartphone Affects Sigh Generation, Brain Activity, and Comprehension,” Motoyasu Honma, Yuri Masaoka, Natsuko Iizuka, Sayaka Wada, Sawa Kamimura, Akira Yoshikawa, Rika Moriya, Shotaro Kamijo, […]
Lip Vibration Assessment of Hot Pepper Sensation [research study]
The mystery of spice-induced lip tingling succumbed, partially, to investigation in the year 2013. Details are in this study: “Food Vibrations: Asian Spice Sets Lips Trembling,” Nobuhiro Hagura, Harry Barber, and Patrick Haggard, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 280, no. 1770, 2013: 20131680. The authors, at University College London, report: Szechuan […]
Struth on Proofs of Mathematical Truths
‘Struth, it is, that Struth is a co-author of this essay that deals with strategies for proving truths: “Proof Strategies,” Moller and Georg Struth [pictured here], in the book Modelling Computing Systems, pp. 131-154. Springer, London, 2013. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-84800-322-4_6
A Complex Analysis of the Unfolding Folding Chair Situation
Sit down, if you can, and read this study about what it takes to get a folding plastic chair to the point where you can sit in it: “A study of design demand of applying quality function deployment in plastic folding chairs,” Chun Tung Chen, Applied Mechanics and Materials, vol. 284, pp. 3632-3636. The author, […]