Writing About Thinking of Speaking with the Dead

This study speaks volumes, but in an unusual way: “Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased,” Arnaud Delorme, Julie Beischel, Leena Michel, Mark Boccuzzi, Dean Radin, and Paul J. Mills, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 4, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Estrella Burgos for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at the Institute […]

Fat Cats Disambiguation (tubby tabbies, or….?)

To (very loosely) paraphrase Murphy’s law :  “If there’s a chance that something might be misunderstood, someone will come along and misunderstand it.” That’s exactly what happened when Improbable came across a 2010 paper in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, entitled : ‘Novel dietary strategies can improve the outcome of weight loss programmes […]

Oh: Brief Walks, and Chocolate Eaters

What of walks and chocolate eaters? Oh, maybe this: “Brisk walking reduces ad libitum snacking in regular chocolate eaters during a workplace simulation,” Hwajung Oh [pictured here], Adrian H. Taylor, Appetite, Volume 58, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 387-392. The authors, at the  University of Exeter, UK, report their discovery: “A brief walk may help […]

Purple (chocolate) is the new brown (chocolate) ?

As our informed readerbase will be aware, in 2004 the chocolate manufacturer Cadbury UK applied for an unusual ‘trademark’. It was unusual in that it had absolutely no distinguishing features other than its colour. The ‘trademark’ [shown above] would (eventually) allow the firm sole-use a specific shade of purple for packaging chocolate bars. [see notes […]

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