Marcus Byrne tells about the dung-beetles-and-the-Milky-Way research that led to an Ig Nobel Prize for him and his colleagues, in this University of the Witwatersrand video: That Ig Nobel Prize was awarded, in 2013, jointly in the fields of biology and astronomy, to Marie Dacke [SWEDEN, AUSTRALIA], Emily Baird [SWEDEN, AUSTRALIA, GERMANY], Marcus Byrne [SOUTH AFRICA, UK], […]
Tag: biology
The new opera about each and every species of life
A new opera, called “The Best Life“, will premiere next week — as part of the Twenty-Fifth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Here’s the story line of “The Best Life“, as explained in the program that will be handed to all 1100 audience members in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre: The story: It’s the day before the greatest competition […]
Trojan Butterflies
The name is alcon. Maculinea alcon. Like a suave British superspy, or maybe even a trojan horse or the proverbial cute abandoned baby left on a doorstep, some butterfly larvae mimic the chemicals of ants to get worker ants to bring them home to the nest. But that’s not all: as Francesca Barbero and Luca […]
Plush Dissected Knit Creatures and Other Scientific Wonders
For several years, people have been able to experience the joys of plush microbes (these are awesome), plush subatomic particles, and even plush statistical distributions. Well, for people who are more into anatomy — or who want a soft way of learning about it — you can also get plush versions of dissected animals (and […]