Improbable Research organizes a Dramatic Improbable Readings session at Arisia every year — dramatic readings from published research studies that make people laugh, then think. In 2022, The Covid-19 pandemic led Arisia to cancel the 2022 convention. Undaunted, Improbable Research did and video recorded a new Dramatic Improbable Readings session. Marc Abrahams, editor of the […]
“The Strange World of Breatharianism” documentary
“Breatharianism is a type of belief system started by Jasmuheen… that hypothesizes and claims to prove that humans can live without consuming solid foods…. She even received the Ig Nobel prize, a satirical parody of the true Nobel Prize, which means she joined the likes of L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology and the […]
Eva Wentink’s Self-Monitoring Toilet Musings
Eva Wentink from OnePlanet (an institute created in a partnership of Wageningen University and Research, Radboud University Nijmegen and IMEC) muses, low-key charismatically, about the need and feasibility of a self-monitoring toilet. She explains how and why she and her colleagues built three toilets: (Thanks to Michiel Scheffer for bringing this to our attention.)
What Does Slime Know?
“What Slime Knows” is an essay by Lacy M. Johnson, in Orion magazine: Here in this little patch of mulch in my yard is a creature that begins life as a microscopic amoeba and ends it as a vibrant splotch that produces spores, and for all the time in between, it is a single cell […]


