Demonstration: How to make bland food taste salty

Electrified chopsticks, soup bowls, and other eating implements can make bland food taste much saltier — much tastier.  The technology was honored with the 2023 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize. The prize, awarded to Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for their experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food. […]

Interview with the Ig Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the Stanford Toilet

Dr. Seung-min Park was awarded the 2023 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize for inventing the Stanford Toilet, a device that uses a variety of technologies — including a urinalysis dipstick test strip, a computer vision system for defecation analysis, an anal-print sensor paired with an identification camera, and a telecommunications link — to monitor and […]

New, Added Acclaim for the Dunning-Kruger Effect

The University of Michigan proudly announces the good news about Ig Nobel Prize winners David Dunning [pictured here] and Justin Kruger: Announcement of the New (2023) Prize Dave Dunning Wins the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) Scientific Impact Award Dr. David Dunning has won the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) Scientific Impact Award. According […]

Six foot plea / Gamers’ lives / Glaring proof / Baffling sci jargon

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Under footage — The green-and-white sign you see here is plastered on the floor of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. It says: “MAINTAIN 6 FEET THANK YOU”.Upon inquiry, Feedback was told that no, the sign is […]

Ig Nobel Show at Imperial College London

We invite you to join us at the Ig Nobel Show at Imperial College London, UK, on Saturday November 18, 2023. This resumes the long series of annual events that was interrupted by the pandemic.  Marc Abrahams and several Ig Nobel Prize winners will talk about the prizes, and answer questions. Featuring: 2023 Literature Prize winner Akira O’Connor (the sensations […]

Beer foamaroma, Hierarchy of needs (dogs and dinos), Superpowerlessnesses

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: A frothy matter — A report called “Beer foam is a carrier of aroma” may be the crushing blow beer foam aroma sceptics – if there are any – feared…. Hierarchy of dog needs — … Maslow’s […]