The title of this study doesn’t say it all. But it says enough to make any thoughtful person want to take a look, and see what’s what: “Too Much Excitement under Highway 87,” D.E. Hook, R.L. Volpe, and C. Chamness, in Pipelines 2006: Service to the Owner, 2006, pp. 1-9. The authors begin their summing […]
A Good Grasp of Knobs: 2022 Ig Informal Lecture
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 2022 Ig Nobel Prize for Engineering was […]
Can you hear the strains of an imaginary Bing Crosby?
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here’s how each of them begins: May your daze be merry — A recent study builds on more than half a century of experiments to see whether people think they hear Bing Crosby crooning White Christmas. Crosby’s recording of the song, released in […]
Snake double anatomy news
“Dr. Brennan said the find was so shockingly obvious that she almost fell out of her chair.” —December 14, 2022 report in the New York Times.
Old Tea Leaves for Supercapacitors
Not everyone uses used tea leaves to make supercapacitors. The authors of this study are among the people who do: “Eco-Friendly and High Performance Supercapacitors for Elevated Temperature Applications Using Recycled Tea Leaves,” Sanket Bhoyate, Charith K. Ranaweera, Chunyang Zhang, Tucker Morey, Megan Hyatt, Pawan K. Kahol, Madhav Ghimir, Sanjay R. Mishra, and Ram K. […]
Gossip, Honesty and Dishonesty: 2022 Ig Informal Lecture
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 2022 Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded […]
As the ball bearing turns / Pretty Sweet biting / Arithmomania
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here’s how each of them ends: Turning point—… And that paper, in its own turn, led to a study published this year in the journal Scientific Reports. It is called “Influence of roundness errors of bearing components on rotational accuracy of cylindrical roller […]
Sleeping in the Audience at Science Meetings
At least one co-author of this study stayed awake while the data for the research was being collected. Probably. The study is: “Dreaming During Scientific Papers: Effects of Added Extrinsic Material,” Richard F. Harvey, Melvin B. Schullinger, Alexis Stassinopoulos, and Erica Winkle, British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition), vol. 287, no. 6409, 1983, pp. 1916-1919. […]
Ice Cream to Prevent Chemo Damage: 2022 Ig Informal Lecture
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 2022 Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine was […]
Karaoke endurance / Kinetics and monkeypox / lint as renewable / biosupercapacitor
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here’s how each of them ends: Sing it loud—… One implication from that intensive Hong Kong experiment: most karaoke singers manage to keep the quality of their singing fairly constant, no matter what. Kinetic excitement— … Then the word “kinetics” takes centre stage, […]