The News of Iceland web site reports: New App Prevents Icelanders from Sleeping With their Relatives The Icelandic population is very small and all Icelanders are related. But yet, it is big enough so everyone doesn’t know one another. This means that each and every Icelander that is in a relationship, is dating a relative. […]
What’s on TV: The NYT recommends the Ig Nobel Documentary
The New York Times today recommends this TV program: 1 P.M. (TV5Monde) QUAND LA SCIENCE FAIT RIRE (2012) What effect do roller coasters have on asthma treatments? Does swearing ease pain? Do we swim more quickly in water or in syrup? The director of this program, Roland Portiche, whose title translates as “When Science Is Funny,” […]
Looking at looking at looking in elevators
Robert Krulwich, on NPR, looks at the research that looked at people looking or not looking at other people in elevators: She’s in Finland now, getting her Ph.D. at the University of Jyvaskyla, but before that, when she was in Adelaide, Australia, she studied elevator behavior. Rebekah Rousi [pictured here] hung around two tall office towers in […]
Cat on a keyboard, then and again
Watching this old video of a cat on a keyboard might give you a deeper appreciation for a later invention: PawSense, software that detects when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard. Chris Niswander, the inventor of PawSense, was awarded the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in computer science.