Earliest reported human flight in Britain (some time near the year 1000)

The earliest reported human flight in Britain happened, if it happened, long. long ago. Alison Hudson reports, in the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts blog: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a… Monk? …did you know that the first recorded pioneer of man-powered flight in the British Isles was an Anglo-Saxon monk from Malmesbury Abbey called Eilmer (or […]

A song for the peoples of Britain, in their hour of dismay

This song, called “Harmonious Misunderstanding”, is the thrilling conclusion to “The Jargon Opera“. The mini-opera premiered as part of the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, at Harvard University. That first performance starred singers Margot Button, Jane Tankersley, and Michelle French, and pianist Greg Neil — accompanied gamely by Nobel Laureates Richard Roberts, William Lipscomb, and Dudley Herschbach, and David […]

Buttock and breast ogling: Britain vs. Argentina

Sex clearly drives Britain and Argentina as they vie to dominate islands of interest. The two great nations are rivals in producing academic studies of whether and how people stare at women’s breasts or buttocks. Britain fired the first shot in this war. In 2007, Adrian Furnham [pictured here] and Viren Swami of University College London published […]

‘Millionaire’ Query: Ostrich Bonk Preference

On the Italian edition of the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”, a contestant recently spent eight minutes wrestling with a question raised in an Ig Nobel Prize-winning study: Who do ostriches prefer as sex partners? Watch this taut dramatic incident: The study being discussed here garnered the 2002 Ig Nobel biology prize for […]

Brit adapts S African auto flamethrower

A British gentleman has built upon the pioneering research of 1999 Ig Nobel Peace Prize winners Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong of Johannesburg, South Africa (who were honored for inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower). The Daily Telegraph reports: Flame-thrower scooter owner arrested Colin Furze, a plumber [and […]