The May 2024 issue of mini-AIR (the monthly teeny tiny supplement to the magazine Annals of Improbable Research) has just gone out. You can add yourself to the email distribution list, if you like, or read it online.
“Can this spoon help Japanese people eat less salt?”
The technology honored with the 2023 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize is now available in a consumer item: an electrified spoon. This Reuters video report tells about it, with the headline “Can this spoon help Japanese people eat less salt?”: That Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to Homei Miyashita [show in the photo above] and Hiromi […]
Distinguishing fanged frogs, Cats on cannabis, Sea stickiness,
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Distinguished frogs — It turns out, say Chatmongkon Suwannapoom and Maslin Osathanunkul, that a good way to distinguish one kind of fanged frog from another is to do melting analysis. Their report, “Distinguishing fanged frogs (Limnonectes) species (Amphibia: […]
Dead Duck Day 2024, in public and in private (June 5th)
June 5th is Dead Duck Day, commemorating a 1995 incident that took place outside the Rotterdam Museum of Natural History (“A Dead Serious Museum“) that has inspired people around the world to think about birds, safety, and just how hard they should be laughing about (or with) nature. Dead Duck Day is observed around the […]