Smells have effects on hair follicles and sounds have effects on the taste of cheese, sometimes, suggest two recent—but not necessarily related studies. The sound-and-hair study is described in LiveScience (thanks to Francesca Bewer for bringing this to our attention): Like your nose, your hair can detect odors. In a new study, researchers found that […]
Tag: hair
2018 in Hair (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™)
The 2018 Members Gallery for The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists is now available to the public. Once a year, we gather the listings of all the new inductees into such a gallery – before that, new inductees are only seen individually (in the Improbable Blog) as they join throughout the year. We invite […]
Recalling the US Fifth Circuit’s first ‘Haircut’ case
If you have been wondering along the lines of – ‘When was the first haircut case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ?’ The answer could well be : Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School District, 261 F. Supp. 545 (N.D. Tex. 1966) The Ferrell plaintiffs were members of a […]
I Would Code Anything for Love (but I Won’t Code That)
Taking the term “Rockstar Programmer” to a new level—well, perhaps they’re half way there?—Dylan Beattie has developed a programming language called Rockstar that allows people to live their wildest dream of writing code that resembles a 1980s rock song: Rockstar is designed for creating computer programs that are also song lyrics, and is heavily influenced by the lyrical […]
The Hairy Ball Theorem revisited – a newer, shorter, proof
Once proved, mathematical theorems* tend to stay proved. Nevertheless, they can sometimes still be improved – say, by making them shorter. Take, for example proofs for The Hairy Ball Theorem. Mathematician Henri Poincaré first drew attention to the Hairy Ball Theorem in 1885 with his treatise ‘Sur les courbes définies par les équations différentielles (III)’ Journal de […]
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen joins the LFHCfS (Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists)
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) has joined the Historical Honorary Members of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Known as the “Father of Radiology”, he discovered and investigated X-Rays while experimenting with vacuum tubes in 1895. He named them "X-Rays" because they were an unknown form of radiation and he refused to patent his discovery. […]
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™ reveals the identity of its 2017 Woman of the Year
TODAY IN OSLO: In front of an audience at the University of Oslo (UiO), The Luxuriant Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) proudly announced its 2017 Woman of The Year – Dr. Anneleen Kool. Dr. Kool was in attendance to discuss her research on the botanical history of the Vikings and to display her luxuriant flowing […]
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™ announces when it will announce it’s 2017 Woman & Man of the Year
The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) proudly announced its 2017 Man Of The Year back in January. Now it proudly announces WHEN it will announce the 2017 Woman of the Year. 2017 MAN of The Year – an Experimental Physicist at Case Western Reserve University, researching cosmic rays – was announced on Friday, […]
2016 in Hair (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™)
Here at close of 2016 The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS), and it’s sibling clubs, have collected the year’s new members into its 2016 Members Gallery. Individual members are first announced as they are inducted throughout the year, in the Improbable Blog’s Hair Club section (with one exception this year**), and then collected […]
Prize-winning biscuit-dunking analyst assesses redheads’ lighting-strike risk
Len Fisher, who was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in physics in 1999, has devised some possible insights stemming from an old report about a red-haired bullock that was struck by lightning. Fisher wrote it up, with the headline “If you want to survive a lightning strike, be a redhead“.