Obesity of Politicians as Indicator of a Country’s Corruption

This new study gives a quick, iffy method to identify which country’s politicians appear to be bigly corrupt, or just plain bigly. The study is: “Obesity of Politicians and Corruption in Post‐Soviet Countries,” Pavlo Blavatskyy, Economic of Transition and Institutional Change, epub 2020. (Thanks to Gabriel Istrate for bringing this to our attention.) The author, […]

“Big Men” in leadership roles [new study]

How does body weight and size affect the perceived persuasiveness of ‘leaders’ (when the ‘leader’ is a man) ? This question has recently been examined by three professors from the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, US. Professor Kevin Kniffin and Professor Vicki  Bogan, along with faculty colleague Professor David Just (also now at […]

Visual evaluation of sliced Italian salami [research study]

Italian researchers Annalisa Romano, Paolo Masi, and Silvana Cavella take a close look at slices of salami in their paper, “Visual evaluation of sliced Italian salami by image analysis.” Rather than using chemical analysis to determine the fat content in the salami, Romano’s team utilized computers to visually inspect the fat content. The computers were […]

Which individuals become fatter when they practice exercise? (study)

Professor Jean-Frédéric Brun of the Service Central de Physiologie Clinique, Centre d’Exploration et de Réadaptation des Anomalies du Métabolisme Musculaire (CERAMM), Montpellier, France, has spent almost half of his life writing research or tutorial papers which deal with exercise, fuel metabolism assessment in vivo, and hemorheology. He has recently investigated a paradox which has, surprisingly, […]

Crafting a “six-pack” from excess body fat

“Currently we are experiencing a ‘golden age’ of plastic surgery body contouring with new innovations by thought leaders, including fat grafting, which are completely raising the bar of postoperative results that can now be delivered to the patients in terms of appearing youthful and sculpted yet natural.” Today, for example, it’s possible to create (apparent) […]

Dr Solomon’s (new) buttock augmentation method

George Solomon, MD of the Solomon Cosmetic Center, Palm Harbor, FL, USA, writes (in the American Journal of Cosmetic Surgery, September 2016) about Buttock Augmentation : A Novel Alternative to a Lengthy Procedure. He points out that despite the number of fat-transfer procedures being performed worldwide, there is no standardization for the harvesting or transferring […]

Tea & coffee diet: Theory of everything

To gain quick fame as a biomedical seer, explain how a person can grow slim (or fat) by drinking coffee (or tea). This newly published study gives you fodder for devising your Theory of Everything. Good luck! “Molecular mechanisms of the anti-obesity effect of bioactive compounds in tea and coffee,” by Min-Hsiung Pan, Yen-Chen Tung, Guliang Yang, Shiming […]

Podcast 26: A look back at the 2014 Ig Nobel Prize winners (PART 1)

Trod-upon banana peels; deities in toast; late night psychopaths; cat hazards; dog alignment; really, really, really heavy marijuana users; fat people’s shoes; spearmint tea and hairy women; and someone who swallowed a fork — all these all turn up in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. Click on the “Venetian blinds” icon — at the lower right corner here […]