The number of murders on British television murder shows is to die for, if you are the sort that lives for that variety of entertainment. This study takes a narrow, sharp plunge into the relevant facts: “Misrepresentation of UK homicide characteristics in popular culture,” J. Brown, N.S. Hughes, M.C. McGlen, and J.H.M. Crichton, Journal of […]
Success and the Attractive Bicycle Racer
Success is — to a measurable degree— in the eyes of the beholder, suggests this study of beautiful bicycle racers and not-as-beautiful bicycle racers: “A relationship between attractiveness and performance in professional cyclists,” Erik Postma [pictured here], Biology Letters, February 2014 vol. 10 no. 2. The author, at the University of Zurich, explains: “Females often […]
The Greedy Bastard’s Guide to Business
Morris B. Holbrook, who is the William T. Dillard Professor Emeritus of Business at Columbia University Business School, New York, has had 35-plus years of experience in teaching MBAs. This experience has enabled him, possibly prompted him, to author a new paper for the Journal of Macromarketing (December 2013, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 369-385) […]
Jumping Off a Building With Bubble Wrap
Rhett Allain, writing in Wired, took a calculating approach to bubble wrap. He introduced it with these thoughts: How much bubble wrap do you need to survive jumping out of the 6th floor of a building? Let me randomly say this is a height of 20 meters. Where would you start with a question like this? […]