The question of the wild giant pandas frequently roll in horse manure is explored in a new study called “Why Wild Giant Pandas Frequently Roll in Horse Manure.” “Why Wild Giant Pandas Frequently Roll in Horse Manure,” Wenliang Zhou, Shilong Yang, Bowen Li, Yonggang Nie, Anna Luo, Guangping Huang, Xuefeng Liu, Ren Lai, and Fuwen […]
Category: Boys Will Be Boys
Research — that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — by and for teenage boys of all ages and genders.
The Pee Tape: How Mammals Pee So Expeditiously
David Hu, head of the 2015 Ig Nobel Prize-winning urination-duration-research team, has a new animated video explaining that research: The 2015 Ig Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Patricia Yang, David Hu, Jonathan Pham, and Jerome Choo, for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus […]
Effects of Cashew Gum and Nanoparticles on Cooled Stallion Semen
The number of published research studies about the effects of cashew gum and nanoparticles on cooled stallion semen has increased by one, with the arrival of this new study: “Effects of Cashew Gum and Nanoparticles on Cooled Stallion Semen,” Kahynna Cavalcante Loureiro, Isabel Bezerra Lima-Verde, Anders Johannisson, Theodoros Ntallaris, Alessandro Jager, Petr Štěpánek, Marcelo da […]
Ministerial Exploration: Ozone Up the Rectum in Brazil
The pandemic is inspiring a few individuals to new depths of innovation. The English translation of this headline is: “Minister of Health meets with supporters of ozone use in the rectum against covid-19“. The August 5, 2020 news report appears in the Brazilian magazine CartaCapital: The article begins by saying: “The interim Minister of Health, […]
Studying Men Who Send Out Pictures of Bits of Themself
Scholars continue to study some of the many men who send out pictures of bits of themselves. A new study and a new book stand out. The book was written by a man who sends out copies of his book about studying men who send out pictures of bits of themselves. A Study to Study […]
Penguin Pooing Pressure, Calculated Anew
The penguin pooing pressure calculation that won the 2005 Ig Nobel Prize for fluid dynamics has been calculated anew by a different group of scientists. The new study is: “Projectile Trajectory of Penguin’s Faeces and Rectal Pressure Revisited,” Hiroyuki Tajima [@HiroyukiTajima3] and Fumiya Fujisawa, arXiv 2007.00926v1, 2020. The authors, at Kochi University and at the […]
The effects of juiciness in an action RPG [new study]
“A juicy game element will bounce and wiggle and squirt and make a little noise when you touch it.” When it comes to ‘Juiciness’ in Role Playing (Computer) Games, too much, or too little, it seems, can be non-ideal. Professor Dominic Kao and colleagues at the Virtual Futures Lab, Purdue University, US, have experimentally investigated such […]
Deep Learning to Help People Know Your Shit
A new, distinct form of backend processing— a very distant relative of potty training, for computers—is presented in this new study: “A mountable toilet system for personalized health monitoring via the analysis of excreta,” Seung-min Park, Daeyoun D. Won, Brian J. Lee, Diego Escobedo, Andre Esteva, Amin Aalipour, T. Jessie Ge, Jung Ha Kim, Susie […]
Mentos + Cola at Various Altitudes
The mentos/cola experiment has reached new heights. Details are in the study: “Probing the Mechanism of Bubble Nucleation in and the Effect of Atmospheric Pressure on the Candy–Cola Soda Geyser,” Thomas S. Kuntzleman and Ryan Johnson, Journal of Chemical Education, epub 2020. The authors, at Spring Arbor University and at Doherty High School, Colorado Springs, […]
Astroquadromagnetoduonostrility
Science advances two nostrils at a time. Or moves in some other direction. The Guardian reports, on March 30, 2020: An Australian astrophysicist has been admitted to hospital after getting four magnets stuck up his nose in an attempt to invent a device that stops people touching their faces during the coronavirus outbreak. Dr Daniel […]