On April 15, 1954, Bellingham, Seattle and other Washington communities are in the grip of a strange phenomenon — tiny holes, pits, and dings have seemingly appeared in the windshields of cars at an unprecedented rate. Initially thought to be the work of vandals, the pitting rate grows so quickly that panicked residents soon suspect […]
Chicken’s head as a camera-stabilization mount
Don’t have an anti-shake camera stabilizer in your camera? Have a chicken handy? Great! Just strap your cam to its head and watch as nature’s image stabilization service does all the work. According to the video, motion processors use an inertial measurement unit, which senses motion (rate, type and direction) and compensates for it. Chickens […]
Ig Nobel winner’s balls and brains
Balls and brains: The quality of a man’s sperm depends on how intelligent he is, and vice versa. So trumpets the headline on a December 4, 2008 report in The Economist about a soon-to-be-published study by 2008 Ig Nobel Economics Prize winner (for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips while they are ovulating) […]
A happy/unhappy new pair of studies
Investigator Stephen Black writes: Much excitement in the news about a study just published in BMJ (British Medical Journal): “Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study,” James H Fowler and Nicholas A Christakis, BMJ 2008 337: a2338. The conclusion: “Peoples happiness depends on […]