“A cigarette typically is employed by a smoker by lighting one end thereof and burning the tobacco rod. The smoker then receives mainstream smoke into his/her mouth by drawing on the opposite end (e.g., the filter end) of the cigarette.” – explains a patent granted to Big Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. U.S. patent 7,967,018 B2, […]
Category: Boys Will Be Boys
Research — that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — by and for teenage boys of all ages and genders.
Pubic Hair Forensics (Improbable Research)
The review column “Public Hair Forensics” is a but one of many featured items in the special Forensics issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. The article is free to download:
Recent Ups and Downs of Coffee Enemas
Two recent medical studies add milk and sugar, so to speak to what we know, medically, about coffee enemas. Up with Coffee Enemas (2020) “Coffee Enemas: A Narrative Review,” Linda L Isaacs [pictured here], Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, vol. 21, no. 12, December 2020. The author, an M.D. in Austin, Texas, explains: Coffee […]
Study Hints that Low Viagra Price Enlivens Men in Sweden
Cheap thrills save lives, some might infer from this new study: “Sildenafil and Suicide in Sweden,” Ralph Catalano, Sidra Goldman-Mellor, Tim A. Bruckner, and Terry Hartig, European Journal of Epidemiology, epub 2021. (Thanks to Staffan Yngve for bringing this to our attention.) Here’s a plot of data from the study, which comes with the explanation […]
The Need for Justifiable Busyness [study]
If someone had told Sisyphus that he was no longer required to push a large boulder up a mountainside for all eternity . . . would he have carried on anyway? According to a 2010 paper in the journal Psychological Science, he might well have. “Our research suggests that Sisyphus was better off with his punishment […]
Baseball / Medical Skills: The Hidden Ball Trick
This decades-old medical report has received surprisingly little attention from the baseball community. Baseball season is about to begin again, in the USA. Please alert anyone to whom this study could be useful: “An Unusual Foreign Body in the Rectum—A Baseball: Report of a Case,” M.P. McDonald and D. Rosenthal, Diseases of the Colon and […]
Two Historic Brassiere-to-Face-Mask Innovations
Dr. Elena Bodnar‘s 2009 Ig Nobel Prize-winning Emergency Bra may be the most spectacular and fashionable instance of brassiere design and protective-face-mask design intersecting. But it is not the first. The 3M company’s N95 mask grew from an-early-1960s bra-cup design by Sara Little Turnbull, according to reports (“How One Woman Inspired The Design For The […]
Evangelical Subculture and Phallically Insecure Masculinity [new study]
What little things do some men get excited about? That’s one of the questions addressed in this new study: “Linking Evangelical Subculture and Phallically Insecure Masculinity Using Google Searches for Male Enhancement,” Samuel L. Perry [pictured here] and Andrew L. Whitehead, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, epub 2021. The authors, at the University […]
Daily Defecation Outputs of Mountain Gorillas
Output takes center stage in this new study of what some gorillas left behind: “Daily Defecation Outputs of Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda,” Elie Sinayitutse, David Modry, Jan Slapeta, Aisha Nyiramana, Antoine Mudakikwa, Richard Muvunyi, and Winnie Eckardt, Primates, epub 2020. (Thanks to Damien Caillaud for bringing this to […]
The Consortium for Research About Profanity
“Welcome to the Consortium for Research About Profanity,” says the Consortium for Research About Profanity, then pausing ever so slightly before explaining: “The Consortium for Research About Profanity is a collection of researchers working on understanding how profanity functions in minds, between people, and across societies.” Who are they? They are a lively bunch: