Oxford maths PhD student Sophie Abrahams explicates the Ig Nobel Prize-winning research on what happens when one walks backwards while (or whilst) holding a cup of coffee. The 2017 Ig Nobel Prize for fluid dynamics was awarded to Jiwon (Jessie) Han, for studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks […]
Tag: Coffee
Colorful Use of Coffee
Methylene blue, methyl orange, and a jug of coffee commune almost poetically, with the third of these acting attractively in opposition to the first two, in this newly published study: “Carbon Adsorbents from Spent Coffee for Removal of Methylene Blue and Methyl Orange from Water,” Inga Block, Christina Günter, Alysson Duarte Rodrigues, Silvia Paasc, Peter […]
Recent Ups and Downs of Coffee Enemas
Two recent medical studies add milk and sugar, so to speak to what we know, medically, about coffee enemas. Up with Coffee Enemas (2020) “Coffee Enemas: A Narrative Review,” Linda L Isaacs [pictured here], Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, vol. 21, no. 12, December 2020. The author, an M.D. in Austin, Texas, explains: Coffee […]
The Reason You Will Spill Coffee, No Matter How Careful You Are
When a person walks while carrying a full cup (with no lid) of coffee, it is almost inevitable that some coffee will spill. Two Ig Nobel Prizes have honored research that analyzed why. Small Expedition Room produced this video news report [in Korean] about the phenomenon: Those Two Coffee-Spill Ig Nobel Prizes The 2012 Ig […]
Using Hot Coffee to Dislodge Meat in the Throat
If someone has a hunk of meat stuck in their throat, should you advise them to drink a mouthful of hot coffee to dislodge the meat? This study suggests an answer to that question. “Esophageal Hematoma Associated with the Bolus Ingestion of Hot Coffee,” Yorinari Ochiai, Daisuke Kikuchi, and Shu Hoteya, Internal Medicine, epub 2020. […]
Coffee as a medical treatment for Covid-19
Is coffee an effective medicine to deal with Covid-19? A large team of researchers in France and the UK explore whether that question—the question, not the coffee—is a good way to get people thinking about: how difficult it can be to find an effective treatment for any problem, and how easy it can be to […]
Coffee and Cow Manure: In Search of the Optimal Inoculum
Man and woman’s yearning for perfection, in this case perfection keyed to the deployment of coffee and cow manure, is the driving force behind this new study: “In Search of the Optimal Inoculum to Substrate Ratio During Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Spent Coffee Grounds and Cow Manure,” Çağrı Akyol, Waste Management and Research, epub 2020. The […]
Coffee, Tea, and Mood Experiments
“Coffee, Tea, and Mood Experiments” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. If you indulge in a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, inform yourself—in a tiny and certainly iffy way—as to what you might be doing to your […]
Instant Coffee: Remove Then Re-Add the Smell
One time-consuming way to make instant coffee from coffee—in a factory—involves removing most of the coffee aroma, then later adding it back to the coffee, so that later still—when someone makes the instant coffee in preparation for serving it to someone who will, still later still, drink it, it smells like coffee. A new study […]
What does coffee do to your brain: The eternal question
“Coffee and the Brain: Attention, Make, React, Threat” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. It gurgles into the seemingly eternal quest to understand how coffee affects what the drinker thinks and feels, and does not think or feel. Read the […]