This drawing by artist Becky Moon celebrates the 2017 Ig Nobel Physics Prize, which was awarded to Marc-Antoine Fardin, for using fluid dynamics to probe the question “Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?” He documented that research, in the paper “On the Rheology of Cats,” Marc-Antoine Fardin, Rheology Bulletin, vol. 83, no. 2, […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Comparatively: People who own dogs or cats — Leah Michelle Baines and Jessica Lee Oliva at James Cook University in Australia say they have discovered that people who own dogs tend to be more resilient than those […]
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: […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: Time for love — Valentine’s Day celebrates coupling. Alan McWilliam tells Feedback about an offer he received, before the most recent Valentine’s Day, from a US-based biotechnology company. It couples charm with other qualities. Alan says: “I […]