What are ‘The Yips’ – and what, if anything, can be done about them? “Certain golfers may experience a phenomenon called `yips.` The term `yips` or `the yips` refers to a condition known as focal dystonia. Athletes affected by the yips demonstrate a sudden, unexplained loss of previous skill. The condition may occur suddenly and without […]
Tag: bottle
Wine bottle bottom dimple enigma
Why do wine bottles (usually) have a raised-up internal dome-like structure [its technical name is a ‘punt’] at the bottom of the bottle? If you have a theory about such things, yours can be compared to a substantial list of possible explanations – bearing in mind that experts in the field are as yet undecided […]
Inventiveness: “The portable bidet compatible with your plastic bottle”
“The portable bidet compatible with your plastic bottle”—that’s what the promoters say in promoting their invention called CuloClean. It’s a propulsive bottle cap. The promotional video and crowdfunding campaign, like the device itself, comes with minimal information. You may find it tricky to flush out information about the people behind CuloClean. Their press kit says only this: […]
Beetles mating with beer bottles, in a minute
A pithy (1-minute-long) telling, by TheBrainScoop, of the story of beetles that mate with beer bottles: The discovery of this biological fact was rewarded with an Ig Nobel Prize. The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize for biology was awarded to Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind […]
Your eminent guide to the cockroaches of Australia
What more pleasing guide could one have to the cockroaches of Australia than one of the scientists who was awarded the 2011 Ig Nobel prize for biology, for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle? David Rentz, who shared that Ig Nobel Prize with Darryl Gwynne, has written […]
Extracting a stuck wine cork — or a new child [patent applications]
Extracting a stuck wine cork from a bottle inspired this method for bringing a child into the world. Jorge Ernesto Odon of Argentina invented a new method for assisting the birth of a child, using an insertable, inflatable bag to grip the child’s head, in the same way one can extract a cork that has […]
The beetles on the bottle (sex and beer action video)
Here’s video of the natural-and-unnatural phenomenon that led to the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in biology. That prize was awarded to Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle. The […]
The epic endurance of nickel-a-bottle Coca-Cola
An economics paper explains, perhaps, the epic endurance of nickel-a-bottle Coca-Cola: “‘The real thing’: nominal price rigidity of the nickel Coke, 1886-1959“, Daniel Levy and Andrew Young, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, (2004). (Thanks to Sandeep Baliga for bringing this to our attention.) Levy and Young write: We report that the price of a 6.5oz […]
A bottle beyond the behind (x-ray)
The New England Journal of Medicine featured this image in October 2010, with the description: A 35-year-old man presented to the emergency department… he was found to be intoxicated… plain-film radiography of the abdomen was performed, and an intact bottle was seen in the rectosigmoid colon. Laparotomy revealed a glass bottle of beer lodged in […]
Kissing Games of Adolescents in Ohio
The history of studies of kissing games of adolescents in the American state of Ohio reached its first high point in 1959, with the publication of: “The Kissing Games of Adolescents in Ohio,” Brian Sutton-Smith, Midwest Folklore, vol. 9, 1959, pp. 189-211.