Inspired by Ig Nobel Prize Winner, China Builds a Rising Moon

The South China Morning Post reports, on January 12, 2022, that “China has built an artificial moon that simulates low-gravity conditions on Earth“. The report begins: China has built a research facility that simulates the low-gravity environment on the moon – and it was inspired by experiments using magnets to levitate a frog. Further details: […]

Moving Chairs in Starbucks: Rice-Wheat Cultural Differences in China

The famed Chinese cultural divide — wheat-centric in the north, rice-centric in the south — plays out even in today’s coffee shops, suggests this new study: “Moving Chairs in Starbucks: Observational Studies Find Rice-Wheat Cultural Differences in Daily Life in China,” Thomas Talhelm, Xuemin Zhang, and Shigehiro Oishi, Science Advances, Vol. 4, no. 4, April […]

Cuteness Engineering (2017 book)

Are you looking for a “state of the art monograph which presents a unique introduction to thinking about cuteness and its incorporation into modern, especially computer-based, products and services” ? If so, you could consult Cuteness Engineering : Designing Adorable Products and Services (Springer International Publishing, Hardback £61.99 or e-Book £48.99). Here is an example chapter […]

The ‘Usefulness of Uselessness’ and a vice versa update

It was somewhere around the 4th century BC that Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou raised the idea of ‘The Usefulness of Uselessness’. Master Zhuang pointed out that objects (or information) which appear at first sight to be quite useless, can, on further investigation (and/or at a later date, and/or at another place) sometimes turn out to […]

“An astonishing 400 tons of dumplings a day”

Nicola Twilley explores many aspects of the history of food refrigeration in China. Twilley’s report “What Do Chinese Dumplings Have to Do With Global Warming?” in the New York Times, ends with a visit to someone who is not thrilled at the culinary prospects of widespread, organized food refrigeration: Still, not all Chinese people are ready […]