Niels Berg Olsen sent this (fabulously) discerning note: I enjoyed reading your item on Greek cheek in your fabulous book This is Improbable, Too [Printed and bound in Denmark…”]. I notice a difference in the text in the book and in your news item in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/05/highereducation.research In the Guardian you wrote: “The report […]
Category: Extra-Improbable columns
Our columns in other publications — The ‘Feedback’ column in New Scientist magazine, beginning in September 2022, and the “Improbable Research”column that ran for 13 years in The Guardian newspaper.
Deep Oesophagus, Snoozing Grumpy Face, Deep Secrets
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Deep Oesophagus — Scientists, as a group, like to think they behave in ways a little distinct from the herd. The herd, as a herd, likes to think so, too. From time to time, Feedback receives furtive […]
Sequencing Gregor Mendel and a Pea Plant / Turtles, Elephants, Bottlecaps Down
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Down, with turtles and elephants — The fabled dominance of the hare by the tortoise has an underground counterpart of sorts in a look at turtles and elephants in times gone by. The elephants came out […]
Dogged Hospital Presence, Unpleasant Polygons; Shape and Shapelessness
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Dogged hospital presence — Dogs should be kept out of human (that is, non-veterinary) hospitals – or, depending on circumstances, welcomed into them. Research papers make the case one way and another.“Towards dog-free hospital campuses in […]



