Voodoo dolls, the Ig Nobel Prize and why headlines matter in academia

Here’s a voodoo-doll-rich, behind-the-scenes account what happened before and after a researcher (and her team) won an Ig Nobel Prize. Elsevier Connects reports: Voodoo dolls, the Ig Nobel Prize and why headlines matter in academia How psychologist Dr. Lindie Liang captured the world’s attention with her research By Lucy Goodchild van Hilten Many researchers have a […]

Using Voodoo Dolls to Measure Aggression in Married Couples (podcast #98)

Are voodoo dolls and low blood sugar helpful for understanding why married couples squabble? A research study explores that very question, and we explore that study, in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams discusses a published voodoo-doll-utilizing study (the very study that made the word “hangry” fairly famous). Tufts University biomedical researcher Dany […]

How to Creep Out Chimpanzees with a Humanoid Robot Doll

Chimpanzees, in general, have less experience with creepy humanoid robot dolls than humans do. This study perhaps reflects that: “Triggering social interactions: chimpanzees respond to imitation by a humanoid robot and request responses from it,” Marina Davila-Ross, Johanna Hutchinson, Jamie L. Russell, Jennifer Schaeffer, Aude Billard, William D. Hopkins, Kim A. Bard,” Animal Cognition, Volume […]

Dr Moi and the fateful inflatable doll: Coming to Denmark

The photo below shows Dr. Harald Moi giving his acceptance speech at the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Dr. Moi and Ellen Kleist were honored that year for their cautionary medical report “Transmission of Gonorrhea Through an Inflatable Doll.” Dr. Moi will discuss details at the shows in Aarhus (on Monday and Tuesday, March 26) and […]

Experiments with inflatable & other life-size dolls

A generic life-size doll, with no modifications, was the key element in at least one unplanned experiment — the experiment documented in a 1993 monograph called Transmission of Gonorrhoea Through an Inflatable Doll, published in the journal Genitourinary Medicine. But generally, scientists who conduct planned experiments that rely on life-size dolls prefer to carefully optimise, or […]