“People’s concerns about excessive flatulence from eating beans may be exaggerated.” That conclusion emerges loud and clear at the end of a study published recently in the Nutrition Journal. Donna Winham [pictured here], of Arizona State University, and Andrea Hutchins, of the University of Colorado, call their report Perceptions of Flatulence From Bean Consumption Among Adults in […]
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.
God-awful pollution of India’s waters
Do the gods pollute? Scientists in India, worried about the public health consequences of immersing idols in lakes and rivers, have been looking anew at water pollution. They hope, and perhaps in some cases pray, to harmonise their medical concerns with some people’s religious priorities. Most of their research has focused on idols of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, created for […]
The problem of exploding pacemakers
People muse that they will, come the day, “go out with a bang”. A little more often than you might expect, someone or other does exactly that, which is why there came into existence a study called Pacemaker Explosions in Crematoria: Problems and Possible Solutions. Christopher Gale [pictured here], of St James’s University Hospital in Leeds, and […]
Choosing politicians randomly produces better results
Democracies would be better off if they chose some of their politicians at random. That’s the word, mathematically obtained, from a team of Italian physicists, economists, and political analysts. The team includes the trio whose earlier research showed, also mathematically, that bureaucracies would be more efficient if they promoted people at random. Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, Cesare Garofalo, […]