Underplayed redundancy in placebo effect research (on cheap vs costly fake medicine)

A celebrated 2015 research paper makes much the same discovery as a paper that won an Ig Nobel Prize for medicine years earlier. The discovery is about the power of pricing fake medicines. The new paper makes only an indirect, beery allusion to the earlier, Ig Nobel Prize-winning research. That 2008 Ig Nobel Prize for medicine […]

The pleasures of watching ironically-enjoyed movies (new study)

“So-called ‘trash films’ do not stand in opposition to taste and education. Quite the contrary, they are often watched by people with an above-average education and interest in culture.” – informs a recent online article from Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, München, Germany. The ‘delight-in-cheapness’ they are referring to is analysed in a paper for the journal Poetics Volume […]

Cheap quasi-repeat of a dear study of cheap-versus-dear fake medicines

A new, celebrated medical paper echoes the beloved study that long ago earned an Ig Nobel Prize for medicine. The Los Angeles Times summarizes the new study, with the headline: “‘Expensive’ placebos work better than ‘cheap’ ones, study finds“. The new study is: “Placebo effect of medication cost in Parkinson disease,” Alberto J. Espay [pictured here], MD, […]