The December issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: Odd Balls; Agony-of-the-Leaves Tea Insights; UK Tour Cities; Stinkbugs-in-Cotton Competition; Accuracy-of-100.4% Poet; Singers/Musicians for our Cambridge Science Festival Show; A Bid to Identify a Skull; etc. Mel [pictured here] says, “It’s swell.” (mini-AIR is the simplest way to keep informed about Improbable and Ig Nobel […]
Happily stuck in time and space
En route from Vancouver to Australia on Dec. 30, 1899, the captain of the S.S. Warrimoo spotted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At midnight, he stopped the ship at the intersection of the international date line and the equator. At that moment, the ship was straddling two different hemispheres, days, months, years, seasons, and centuries, all at […]
That Royal purveyor of asses’ milk
“Who was the purveyor of asses’ milk referred to in that sign?” inquires investigator Ernie Leighton, referring to a recent post about old London signs. The answer, as describe in Littell’s Living Age, volume 100: Mrs. Dawkins, Purveyor of Asses’ milk to the Royal Family : 66, Bolsover Street, New Road. Mrs. Dawkins enjoyed a […]
Miles: More hair
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) member Miles Rzechowicz has sent in a more splendiferous photo of his hair (and other parts of himself).