Research — on any and all subjects — that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
A lot can happen to a drop. That becomes evident as one reads this study, and even more evident if and as one tried to replicate the study: “Controlled Uniform Coating from the Interplay of Marangoni Flows and Surface-Adsorbed Macromolecules,” Hyoungsoo Kim, François Boulogne, Eujin Um, Ian Jacobi, Ernie Button, and Howard A. Stone, Physical […]
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”, […]
Encyclopedia Sciplayer has made two more videos, each about a different Ig Nobel Prize winner: “Why Don’t Woodpeckers Get a Headache”: “How to take a blink-free photo”:
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here’s how they begin: Curiously Meta—Coltan Scrivner’s curiosity about morbid curiosity is ushering him to higher and higher realms. He wrote his PhD thesis on the subject and joined the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University, Denmark. Scrivner defines morbid curiosity as “a motivation […]
Economically speaking, should one look up to the businesspeople who build skyscrapers, or look down at them? Calculation is involved in reaching the answer obtained in this study: “A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Skyscrapers,” Robert W. Helsley and William C. Strange, Journal of Urban Economics, vol. 64, no. 1, July 2008, pp. 49-64. The authors explain: […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has two segments. Here’s how they begin: Physics vs Mona Lisa — The wood and smile of the Mona Lisa fascinate scientists. Not wooden smile. Wood and smile. A new study in the Journal of Cultural Heritage reveals how researchers have spent 18 years exploring the wooden panel on which Leonardo da […]
Encyclopedia Sciplayer made these two videos, each about a different Ig Nobel Prize winner: “Why can itch can be relieved by mirror scratching”: “How do wombats make cubed poo”:
Phrasing something a different way can flip its apparent meaning. Here’s an example. A press release begins by saying this: “Adults over 50 who sleep for five hours or less per night have a greater risk of developing more than one chronic disease…” Now re-phrase that — in a way that is equally true — […]
2007 was a stellar year for psychological essays about gassing and braking and the self. At least one such essay was published that year, namely: “Gassing, Braking, and Self-Regulating: Error Self-Regulation, Well-Being, and Goal-Related Processes,” Michael D. Robinson, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2007, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 1–16. The author, at North […]
This video, made by iFaces in Pakistan, asks the plain question “What will happen if you fall into a pool of honey?” The answer it presents involves some Ig Nobel Prize-winning research about swimming: