Ig Nobel Prize-winning research comparing magnetized and unmagnetized cockroaches has now led to an experiment involving quantum entanglement and a tardigrade. Details about the tardigrade and entanglement are in this study: “Entanglement Between Superconducting Qubits and a Tardigrade,” K. S. Lee, Y. P. Tan, L. H. Nguyen, R. P. Budoyo, K. H. Park, C. Hufnagel, […]
Tag: cockroach
The opera “Dream, Little Cockroach” [the whole video]
The opera “Dream, Little Cockroach” premiered as part of the 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on September 17, 2020. Here’s video of the opera, by itself. Plot summary: A man dreams that, although he was always a cockroach, he has been transformed into a human being. His family, and scientists, and the whole […]
“How Did Bulgaria Get to the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony?”
The Bulgarian bTV network asks and answers the question “How Did Bulgaria Get to the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony?” Their November 28, 2019 report profiles Ig Nobel Prize winner Herbert Crepaz. The report begins with the statement “The winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology is an Austrian who lives in our country.” Magnetic […]
Cockroach oil gets thumbs down for cookery [new study]
If you’re thinking of supplementing or replacing your plant-based cooking oils with oils made from insects, maybe steer away from Blaptica dubia – the Dubia Cockroach. Stick to mealworms or house crickets instead. That’s the take-home message from a new paper in-press at the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed which details recent progress […]
Virtual cockroaches alleviate fear of cockroaches
Not many people with a fear of, say, cockroaches, would be happy to let a few of them roam across their bare hands (in order to alleviate their fears by habituation). In other words: “Although in vivo exposure is the treatment of choice for specific phobias, some acceptability problems have been associated with it.” In […]
Your eminent guide to the cockroaches of Australia
What more pleasing guide could one have to the cockroaches of Australia than one of the scientists who was awarded the 2011 Ig Nobel prize for biology, for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle? David Rentz, who shared that Ig Nobel Prize with Darryl Gwynne, has written […]
A sort of cow, and some sorts of cockroaches
Here’s a year-end tiny collection comprising a cow and lots of cockroaches. The cow is mechanical, caught here on video (Thanks to Rachel Ehrenberg for bringing it to our attention): [vimeo]15577865[/vimeo] The University of California supplies this description: Cow: the digestive system’s complex mysteries: Nova Jiang is an artist and UCLA alumna who makes work […]
Cockroach Under-the-Tongue Safety Study
Investigator Mark Natter alerts us to an ongoing study by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): Sublingual Cockroach Safety Study (SCSS) This study is ongoing, but not recruiting participants. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00434421 Purpose: Immunotherapy may help reduce symptoms of allergy and asthma. Problems concerning compliance and adverse events with subcutaneous allergen immunotherapy […]
Music | Cockroaches | Nudity – a review
The latest issue of the journal Radical Musicology presents one of the very few peer-reviewed scholarly articles examining interspecies musical collaboration with giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches. The author, doctoral researcher Stacey Sewell, describes a 1997 performance of ‘Ritual’ by New York based artist Miya Masaoka in which the artist lay naked on stage while 13 […]