Science celebrity news: Glassware Prohibitor’s Progeny?

The Nigerian news site ABTC raises a curious question about 2024 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize winner Bob Glasgow: Bob Glasgow children: Does Bob Glasgow have kids? By Seth Frimpong …Glasgow, born on February 28, 1942, in Stephenville, Texas, was a trained lawyer who ventured into politics, eventually becoming a member of the Senate of Texas. […]

Mentos + Cola at Various Altitudes

The mentos/cola experiment has reached new heights. Details are in the study: “Probing the Mechanism of Bubble Nucleation in and the Effect of Atmospheric Pressure on the Candy–Cola Soda Geyser,” Thomas S. Kuntzleman and Ryan Johnson, Journal of Chemical Education, epub 2020. The authors, at Spring Arbor University and at Doherty High School, Colorado Springs, […]

Cleaning with spit, and now with pillars and pancakes

Last month human saliva got its due, with the awarding of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prize for chemistry, as an effective agent to clean surfaces. This month, pillars and pancakes are served up as an effective way to pattern surfaces so that those surfaces will be self-cleaning. Pillar/pancake details are in the new study “Pillars […]

Celebrating Professor Arnold’s Further and Future Adventures

I have to say I feel pretty tickled (and yes, honored) by the final minute of this Science Friday interview with new Nobel Chemistry Prize winner Frances Arnold. After hearing the interview, I of course got in touch with Professor Arnold, inviting her to take part in next year’s (2019) Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. She […]

Classical music composition and a keen interest in chemistry – are there links?

What correlation, if any, is there between the study of chemistry and talents for classical music composition? Answers are unclear, but the late emeritus professor of chemistry at the Catholic University of America, Leopold May, provided an excellent resource for those wishing to investigate further. ‘The lesser known chemist-composers, past and present’ was published in […]

An hour of Improbable Research, in the crucible of Standards & Technology

Historic video:  An hour of improbable research, presented at the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] in 2014—with Marc Abrahams [founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony] and Theo Gray [2002 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize winner for inventing the 4-legged periodic table table.] Here’s the official NIST description of this event: Dung beetles finding […]

Volkswagen’s Ig Nobel Prize-winning research also used cartoon-watching monkeys

The research that won an Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize for Volkswagen also involved monkeys watching cartoons while they inhaled automobile fumes — a fact that was not publicly known at the time the prize was awarded. Nor was it known to the Ig Nobel Board of Governors. The monkeys/cartoons news was reported today by Jack […]