Just stumbled across a big box of press clippings from the 90s. Here’s Bill Lipscomb with the plaster cast of his left foot on display. This article in the Harvard Gazette on October 2, 1997, says: IG NOBEL FEET: William N. Lipscomb, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1976, holds his foot up against a display […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has two segments. Here’s how they begin: Physics vs Mona Lisa — The wood and smile of the Mona Lisa fascinate scientists. Not wooden smile. Wood and smile. A new study in the Journal of Cultural Heritage reveals how researchers have spent 18 years exploring the wooden panel on which Leonardo da […]
Ants were in use as miniaturized characters in Brazilian nativity scenes until at least the 1960s. “Present in Brazil since the beginning of Portuguese colonization, crèche nativity scenes were soon adapted to local reality, a propitious circumstance for the appearance of heterodox conceptions and the use of exotic elements of the fauna and flora peculiar […]
The painting, by Ragnar Sandberg (1902–1972) entitled Chicken Handler (Hönsskötären , 1937), depicts a farmer and his chickens. Although many may have overlooked the red face-rash that the farmer evidently has, professor Nicolas Kluger of The University of Helsinki | HY-Skin and Allergy Hospital, has not. “The farmer displays a striking medio‐facial redness located on the […]
“With patience and spit” is the headline in the German magazine Monopol, about the application of Ig Nobel Prize-winning knowledge to the cleaning of a historic painting. Marcus Boxler reports, in Monopol: A highlight of the Mannheim art gallery collection is currently being cleaned up: The oil painting “The execution of the Emperor Maximilian of […]
Jonathan Fugelsang, whose team was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2016 for studying the power of pseudo-profound bullshit, has a new study, with other colleagues, about the power of bullshit: “Bullshit Makes the Art Grow Profounder,” Martin Harry Turpin, Alexander C. Walker, Mane Kara-Yakoubian, Nina N. Gabert, Jonathan A. Fugelsang, and Jennifer A. Stolz, […]
Every Ig Nobel Prize ceremony since 1996 has included a new mini-opera, performed by professional opera singers (with Nobel Laureates acting in supporting roles). These mini-operas honor the tradition of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “Rabbit of Seville“—each mini-opera is a pasticcio that marries a brand new story & words to beloved […]
A proper appreciation of spit might have prevented an art tragedy. The tragedy is reported by VN Express International: HCMC museum takes a national treasure to the cleaners A precious lacquer painting suffered 30 percent damage during cleaning process due to cleaner’s lack of knowledge in art. The painting, Vuon Xuan Trung Nam Bac (Spring Garden […]
Art is in the AI of the beholder, so to speak. In a report called “Mona Lisa frown: Machine learning brings old paintings and photos to life,” Techcrunch describes what’s in a new research paper: …Machine learning researchers have produced a system that can recreate lifelike motion from just a single frame of a person’s […]
Secrets will be revealed about how the the secrets were revealed about what was secreted inside a seemingly simple statue: When the sculpture arrived in the United States in 1937, a visiting Japanese conservator discovered that it contained an extraordinary cache of more than 70 dedicatory objects. It has taken over 80 years to begin […]