Kees Moeliker reports a well-known—but seldom noticed by humans—butterfly behavior: drinking human tears. Here is a machine-translation into English of his report in the September 22, 2020 issue of the Dutch newspaper NRC: ——— Drinking tears While on holiday in the Alps, a butterfly feasts on the eye fluid of Kees Moeliker’s daughter The splendor […]
Tag: drink
Flavouring fruity booze with a stinky gas [patent]
If you’re trying to make an alcoholic drink with the flavour of passion fruit and grapefruit, an obvious method would be to ferment passion fruit and grapefruit juices. But that’s not the only way. You could, for example, get hold of a fermenting New Zealand Sauvingnon Blanc as a base, and then bubble hydrogen sulfide […]
Deterring hospital patients from ‘drinking’ from hand sanitizers – Dr. Weiner’s solution
Aside from causing the occasional fire, alcohol-based hand santizers in hospitals have another problem. They’re a handy ‘non-beverage’ source of (jellified) alcohol for those patients who crave intoxication. There are several published formal investigations on the subject – see, for example : Consumption of alcohol-based hand sanitisers by hospital inpatients The Medical journal of Australia […]
(At least) Two Ways to Frustrate a Desire (for a Cup of Tea)
How might a person’s desire be ‘frustrated’ by another person? Philosophers David Birks and Thomas Douglas at the University of Oxford, suggest two ways in the Journal of Value Inquiry, September 2017, using the desire for a cup of tea as an example. “Suppose that a person, call him Andrew, has a desire to drink […]
“Will a vegetarian diet during pregnancy drive your child to drugs and drink”
This news article explores whether a particular science study corresponds to reality. The news article is “Will a vegetarian diet during pregnancy drive your child to drugs and drink?“, by Sharon Begley, published in Stat. The science study itself is “Meat Consumption During Pregnancy and Substance Misuse Among Adolescent Offspring: Stratification of TCN2 Genetic Variants,” published in […]
A novel source of ultrahigh surface area carbons – fizzy drinks (study)
“Ultrahigh surface area carbons (USACs, e.g., >2000 m2/g) are attracting tremendous attention due to their outstanding performance in energy-related applications.” Observations such as this have lead to the search for an easy and cheap method of producing these materials – which find uses like supercapacitor electrodes, catalyst supports, and gas sorbents etc etc. A research […]
The Lovejoy Comet (Cock)Tail – a festive recipe
Improbable’s Call for Papers on “The nutritional value of comets” Mini-Annals of Improbable Research, Issue Number 1994-02, June, 1994, is still open. For inspiration with your submissions, what better time is there to prepare a Lovejoy Comet (Cock)Tail? Here is the recipe – inspired by chemical components that are all readily available on Comet Lovejoy […]
The ‘Champagne Toast Position’ test – a new diagnostic method for shoulder pain
The photo above depicts the newly developed ‘Champagne Toast Position’ test for examining the electromyographic activity of the supraspinatus muscle. A research team from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, US, developed the test as a more effective alternative to Jobe’s test (a.k.a. the Empty Can Test) . . . The […]
Drink | drunk | hungover (studies)
Scenario: You’re on holiday. You drink heavily. What are the factors that might contribute towards a hangover? Such a question was asked by researchers Morten Hesse and Sébastien Tutenges of the University of Aarhus, Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Copenhagen Division, Denmark, who performed a 2010 observational prospective study with a total of 112 […]
Partially drunk people can appear more attractive
There’s yet another twist in research news about drunkenness and the perception of beauty. The 2013 Ig Nobel psychology prize was awarded to Laurent Bègue [FRANCE], Brad Bushman [USA, UK, the NETHERLANDS, POLAND], Oulmann Zerhouni [FRANCE], Baptiste Subra [FRANCE], and Medhi Ourabah [FRANCE], for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they […]