Here’s video of the natural-and-unnatural phenomenon that led to the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in biology. That prize was awarded to Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle. The […]
How to disassemble a skyscraper, chapter 2
There’s a new state of the art of disassembling — rather than “simply” dynamiting — a building tall enough to be called a skyscraper. The old, albeit seldom-if-ever-used method is shown and described in David MaCauley’s book Unbuilding. We described it here not so long ago. The new approach is a more mechanized version of […]
Unclassifiable headline: “Twitter can help weight loss – study”
This week’s Unclassifiable Headline of the Week appears on GMA News: “Twitter can help weight loss – study“.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel
Mistakes happen, or so they say. This essay analyzes one such mistake: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel,” by Margo Wilson and Martin Daly [both pictured here]. In, J.H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Eds. , The Adapted Mind. Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. 1992. Oxford University Press. New York. […]