‘This study assessed the effects of the odour and ingestion of garlic bread on family interactions.” With those opening words, Alan R Hirsch of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, in Chicago, Illinois, declared the purpose and the breadth of his research. So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian. Read […]
Mad Cow / Opera
Is mad cow disease a tragedy of operatic scale? Not yet, but it is of mini-operatic scale. “The Brain Food Opera,”a mini-opera in 3 acts, was performed at the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. The entire libretto is here, and you can hear the perfomance by listening to NPR Science Friday’s broadcast of the ceremony, […]
Woof, Quack (Ig)
Kees Moeliker, who won the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, published a photo-rich diary of his Ig experience. See it here. Aline McKenzie of the Dallas Morning News personally tested Bow-Lingual, the automatic dog-to-human-language translation device, the inventors of which received […]
Professor Lipscomb’s Nano-Lecture
At the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb delivered an especially animated Nano-Lecture, on the topic CHEMISTRY. See it here. This is the third of the five Nano-Lectures we’ll be posting. The Nano-Lecture recalled Mike Stanfill’s magnificent tribute to Tom Lehrer, which was part of the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.