Experts, especially British experts, both agree and disagree on the question: What is the proper way to make a cup of tea? Investigator Gary Dryfoos reminds us that there are audiovisual materials documenting some of those views. Here are a few of those materials. One might keep in mind that there is an official British […]
“How to Spill a Cup of Coffee” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. It looks at two studies—each of which led to an Ig Nobel Prize—about the physics of how and why anyone who walks with a full cup of […]
The 1999 Ig Nobel Literature Prize was awarded to The British Standards Institution, for its six-page specification (BS-6008) of the proper way to make a cup of tea. BS-6008 is now, in the year 2020, available for sale at a price of £110.00 per copy from the British Standards Institution, which now calls itself BSI. […]
“For travelers, balancing luggage, a snack, personal items, and a drink can be difficult, often resulting in spilling of beverages either while walking around or while seated on, for example, a plane or in a car.” What one needs, perhaps, is a self-stabilizing drinks-cup holder? And, fortunately, a newly patented solution has become available. Inventor […]
When you get a cup of coffee from a vending machine, are you getting a soupćon of ink in your drink? This study looks into that question: “Determination the Set-Off Migration of Ink in Cardboard-Cups Used in Coffee Vending Machines,” Esther Asensio, Teresa Peiro, and Cristina Nerín, Food and Chemical Toxicology, epub 2019. The authors, […]
The answer may depend on many factors – not least, on whom you ask. Dr John Kazer for example, who is a Carbon Footprint Certification Manager for the UK-based Carbon Trust will tell you that for a 250ml cup, it’ll take around 30 litres – but that’s just for the tea itself – considerably more […]
Where does a cup end and a mug start? And vice versa? Help towards answering this consistently vexing question can be found in an essay by Brett Laybutt entitled A Corpus Study of ‘Cup of [Tea]’ and ‘Mug of [Tea]’ In which he cites the work of scholars who have tried, over the years, to […]
Inventor Charles Russell. of Dublin, Ireland, has just received a US patent (Dec, 2014) for his : ‘Drinking vessel fillable from the bottom and apparatus for dispensing a beverage therein’ The glass, which can be used for stout, or other beers, is filled (or refilled) via a special nozzle equipped with a non-return valve. Also […]
Research about the brain tries to measure — and interpret — ever-more-complex kinds of phenomena. Dr. Aziz-Zadeh tells, in a recorded talk for Academic Minute, about an advanced investigation: …looking at the brain activity of Jewish individuals while they watched videos of Anti-Semetic Neo-Nazis performing simple actions, like reaching for a cup. BONUS: the 2012 Ig Nobel […]
Miss Conduct [who is also, under her own name, the psychology editor of the Annals of Improbable Research] considers a difficult case. The person who brought it to her attention wrote: “It has come to my and several co-workers’ attention that a woman who works in our office is locking herself in the library and […]