The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. In the Ig Informal Lectures, some days after the ceremony, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it. We are releasing these lectures one at a time. The 2021 Ig Nobel for Biology was awarded […]
YouTube, the Ig Nobel Prizes, and the Year 1914
[NOTE: On September 22, 2021 we more or less solved the problem. See the end of this blog post for the happy news about that. The original blog post was written on September 13, while we were intensely wrestling with the problem.] YouTube’s notorious takedown algorithms are blocking the video of the 2021 Ig Nobel […]
Why-Exactly-Is-a-Bicycle-Stable Experiments
David Jones some years ago assaulted humanity’s embarrassing lack of understanding of why moving bicycles are so stable. Jones performed a series of experiments, from which he learned some surprising things. He revealed them in this article: “The Stability of the Bicycle,” David E.H. Jones, Physics Today, April 1970, pp. 34-40. (Thanks to Catherine Klauss […]
Podcast Episode #1081: “Ear Bigness Through the Years”
In Podcast Episode #1081, Marc Abrahams shows an unfamiliar research study to biologist Dany Adams. Dramatic readings and reactions ensue. Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public. Dany Adams encounters: “Ear size as a predictor of chronological age,” R. Tan , V. Osman, and G. Tan, Archives of […]