This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine is about the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. The Feedback column was created and edited by John Hoyland. I first knew Feedback (and John’s work) as a subscriber to New Scientist. Every year the column would have an especially fun and interesting writeup of the new Ig […]
Are you one of those people who laughs every time you see yourself in a mirror? If you are (or even if you’re not) you may be interested in a project presented at the International Multimedia Conference, 2007. A Dutch research team assembled a computerised camera/display system which emulated a mirror – but with built-in […]
From New Scientist’s Feedback column: THE tea room in the Caulfield School of Information Technology, part of Monash University in Victoria, Australia, has a fine collection of higher degree theses. They are, Tom Peachey tells us, all in pristine condition and locked behind glass. All pristine, that is, except one that has paper damage and […]
New Scientist’s Feedback column cogitates: On 30 January, we reported on the fat content of Cadbury’s Mini Rolls. Now Rod Costigan sends us his thoughts about another Cadbury product, Fry’s Turkish Delight. The packaging of this “exotic taste sensation” boasts that it is “60 per cent less fat*, and always has been”. Rod says he […]
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: On a visit to the South Lakes Wild Animal Park near Dalton-in-Furness on the fringes of the UK’s Cumbrian mountains, Karl Turner’s 6-year-old daughter Jessica was rather bemused by a sign she spotted, which read: “There is nothing currently in this area”. After pondering this for a moment, she commented, […]
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: LIKE reader Jerry Huxtable, Feedback is puzzled by the proliferation of feeble warning signs. Jerry points to a sign on a door at London’s Paddington train station with a yellow and black warning triangle and exclamation mark next to the legend “Low Voltage”. He also cites the Hilton hotel in […]
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: Michael Harvey tells us he is munching from a packet of Walkers Thai sweet chilli flavour crisps (chips, transatlantically). The packet proudly proclaims: “made with real ingredients”, and Michael wonders what the alternative is. Within the hour Paul Gardner writes with an answer, inspired by a packet of poppadoms from […]
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: HAVE you wondered why manufacturers have taken to adding scents to more and more consumer products – including car tyres (28 March 2009)? If so, a study in the US Journal of Consumer Research, has this answer: “Product scent may be particularly effective at enhancing memory for product information as […]
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: CAMPAIGNING for another bridge or tunnel across the Thames river in London, blackwalltunnel.com presents meters showing the traffic flowing into and out of each portal of the existing Blackwall tunnel. Checking the site at 5 pm on a Friday, Feedback was concerned to see huge numbers of vehicles entering the […]
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: WHEN you are selling education packs for children, some of whose parents might be fervent creationists, one of the options available is to, well, cave in to them and ditch the education part. That seems to be the option chosen by US publisher Live and Learn Press with its dinosaur […]