As if prepared for it all their lives, fans of horror fiction plunge now into a real pandemic. A new study looks at their psychological prospects. “Pandemic Practice: Horror Fans and Morbidly Curious Individuals Are More Psychologically Resilient During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Coltan Scrivner [pictured here, stylistically], John Johnson, Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, and Mathias Clasen, PsyArXiv, […]
Tag: COVID-19
Dead Salmon Spirit: Can You Not Tell Cats from Covid-19?
[NOTE: The paper was retracted, as described below—here is an updated link to a copy of it.] In the spirit of the Ig Nobel Prize-winning dead salmon study (and subsequent studies that went looking for fishy things) comes this new study about Covid-19, cat images, and some limitations of technology: “Can Your AI Differentiate Cats […]
Searching in the Weeds for a Cannabis Treatment for Covid-19
Almost every surprising discovery comes from something that seemed unlikely—the seeming-unlikeliness is why the discovery had to be discovered surprisingly. Here is one of many new attempts to discover something that would surprise and delight the world. This particular discovery, should it be discovered, would theoretically infuriate a few people. “In Search of Preventative Strategies: […]
Masked and Un-Masked Spittle Produced When One Says “Stay Healthy”
The biomedical race to understand and tame the COVID-19 virus proceeds rapidly, drop by drop. This new spittle study is the very latest addition to the literature: “Visualizing Speech-Generated Oral Fluid Droplets with Laser Light Scattering,” Philip Anfinrud, Valentyn Stadnytskyi, Christina E. Bax, and Adriaan Bax, New England Journal of Medicine, April 15, 2020. (Thanks […]