The 25th Dead Duck Day, on June 5th, which was postponed from 2020 until 2021, will be more or less postponed till 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So be on the lookout for the special (postponed) 25th anniversary edition in 2022. This year, like last year, Dead Duck Day will have only two participants […]
Tag: dead
The case of the roaming cat carcass & the case of the dead cat carcass
Cat carcasses can create curiosity. A study called “A Case Report of a Botulism Outbreak in Beef Cattle Due to the Contamination of Wheat by a Roaming Cat Carcass: From the Suspicion to the Management of the Outbreak” has been published by a research team in France. An earlier report by a team in Australia, […]
How is a computer programmer like a dead salmon?
One statement, at least, in a June 5, 2020 press release would be hard to dispute: “Our goal was to develop a completely new approach to better understand the cognitive processes involved in programming.” The press release, issued by the Chemnitz University of Technology, comes with the headline “Programming ‘language’: Brain scans reveal coding uses […]
The Deposition of Airborne Droplets on Dead House-flies [study]
When it comes to the question of the optimum droplet diameter for deposition on dead flies (in woodland), there aren’t many pertinent research papers. Possibly only one. A 2009 study from R. T. Jarman of Chesterford Park Research Station, UK, recounts attempts, by experiment, to find out. “An experimental laboratory study of the deposition of […]
The dead are rising up against their national leaders
Led by Ig Nobel Prize winner Lal Bihari, the dead are rising up against their national leaders. Here’s a look back at notable happenings in 2019. The Times of India reported, on January 19, 2019: In Varanasi, ‘living dead’ to contest against PM Modi If Prime Minister Narendra Modi decides to contest the upcoming Lok […]
Wednesday is Dead Duck Day
The 24th annual Dead Duck Day celebration happens on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Dead Duck Day honors the mallard duck that became known to science as the first (documented) ‘victim’ of homosexual necrophilia in that species, and earned its discoverer, Kees Moeliker, the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize. Kees Moeliker, who is now director of the […]
‘Necro Advertising’ – the pros and cons [new study]
They are known, in advertising circles as ‘Delebs’ (deceased celebrities) . . . “Unbeknown to them, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen and Gene Kelly, among others, recently presented products in ads for high- and low-equity brands.” A new paper in the Journal of Business Ethics describes experiments which have, for the first time, examined […]
Dead salmon, again in the service of science
Just a few years after dead salmon helped neuroscientists analyze data more carefully, other dead salmon are helping other scientists better understand how trees grow. The neuroscience salmon figured in the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study “Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction,” Craig M. Bennett, Abigail […]
Update on Association of Dead People’s Award-winning Founder
Lal Bihari, who founded the Association of Dead People, is back in the news (and he’s still, again, alive). Outlook India magazine reports, with the headline “In UP’s Azamgarh, ‘Living Dead’ Have A Long Legal Battle To Fight“: … At age 21, Lal Bihari applied for a loan to start a business. The bank wanted […]
Richard Nixon’s inauguration day haul of dead pigeons
“In his previous inauguration, Nixon had noticed that there were a large number of birds in the trees, and didn’t like the thought of being pooped on as he drove down the National Mall in Washington DC in an open-top limo. Nixon ordered that the pigeons were to be removed – and so the US […]