Scott Lafee‘s Wellnews syndicated column often presents tidbits about things that have won Ig Nobel Prizes. Here’s the most recent (August 19, 2019): Ig Nobel Apprised The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh and then think — a look at real science that’s hard to take seriously and even harder to ignore. […]
Tag: explode
Podcast #33: Make sure colonoscopy patients will not explode
Chimpanzees recognizing photographs of the rear ends of other chimpanzees; colonoscopy patients who explode, and the patent for the bagel-making machine — all these all turn up in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. Click on the “Venetian blinds” icon — at the lower right corner here — to select whichever week’s episode you want to hear: SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify […]
A dark, yet sunny, techno-apocalyptic paper
A dark, yet sunny, techno-apocalyptic paper by the prolific Alexander Bolonkin and a friend, a self-noted self-described thinker: “Explosion of Sun,” Alexander Bolonkin, Joseph Friedlander [pictured here], Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, vol. 2, 2013, pp. 83-96. The authors, at Strategic Solutions Technology Group, New York, explain: “If we create higher temperature and density […]
Controversy upon controversy: Not “Float, explode, or sink”, but rather *implode*?
The 2012 study “Float, explode or sink: postmortem fate of lung-breathing marine vertebrates,” which [as we mentioned here yesterday] was awarded the prestigious Senckenberg Award, does have its detractors. Or rather, detractor. Who advances a theory that certain carcasses implode. A.J. Van Loon [pictured here] of Adam Miczkiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, published a commentary about explaining why he […]
Float/explode/sink carcass study wins Senckenberg Award
Joyous news about a contrarian study of upside-down-carcass theory, reported this month in the journal that published the study: “Authors of outstanding article receive Senckenberg Award!” Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, November 2013. We are pleased to announce, that the Alexander von Humboldt-Gedächtnispreis 2013 was awarded to authors of the following article, published in the special issue […]
The Coffin Blew Up (and maybe something about why it did)
This newspaper report gives public details about an embarrassing explosion: “The Coffin Blew Up“, The Meridan [Missouri, USA] Daily Republican, July 21, 1890. (Thanks to investigator Erwin Kompanje for bringing this to our attention.) Here is a reproduction of the entire article: BONUS (mostly unrelated): The 2012 Ig Nobel Prize for medicine honored the […]
How to blow up a cow (officially)
The BBC reports (HT Adam Orbit) that US authorities might explode some dead cows: Frozen Colorado cows may be blown up A group of stray cows that froze to death in the Colorado mountains must be blown up or set on fire to avoid water contamination, forestry officials say. The carcasses were discovered near the Conundrum Hot […]
The Exploding Toilet(s) of Washington, DC
Washington, DC suffered a tiny rash of exploding toilets [or toilet—it’s unclear whether more than one exploded] “on or around September 26, 2011“, according to a report by Tom Nash of Muckrock: Six months after what was probably the worst Monday of all time for two General Services Administration employees and the symbol du jour of […]
The Men Behind Exploding Meat
Before John Long applied his expertise to the problem, people tried many ways to make meat more tender — chewing it, pounding it, soaking it in enzymes. The report, Hydrodyne Exploding Meat Tenderness, published in 1998 by the US department of agriculture (USDA), describes Long’s act of creation as “a peacetime use for explosives”. “Throughout John Long’s career as […]
A boxing match, with fireworks
John Ptak is spotlighting some inventions of limited utility. Here’s the first, a boxing exhibition in London, in which the contestants wear asbestos suits with fireworks that explode during the (pardon the pun) match. It’s pictured in a 1937 issue of Popular Science magazine: BONUS: From a later decade: electronic rock-em sock-em robots