Podcast Episode #209: “Words for Food in Your Mouth”

Words for Food in Your Mouth, an Apple a Day, Eating the Shrew, an Epidemic of Penile Amputations, Reactions to Chicken Nuggets, Ig and Beyond, What Matters in NBA Games, Why Spaghetti, and What Your Gut Says Psychoanalytically. In episode #209, Marc Abrahams shows some unfamiliar research studies to Jean Berko Gleason, Chris Cotsapas, Kishore […]

The California-ness of open-mouthed jaw settings (new study)

Looking at the clip above, did you spot any prominent non-verbal actions that might characterize ValleySpeak? A number of academic papers have examined the pronunciation aspects of so-called ValSpeak from California, few however, have focused on one of its characteristic features known as ‘Jaw Setting’ – in this case slack jaw, open mouth (see Fig. […]

Superpowers for baristas

There’s reported progress in the struggle to give baristas (and their bosses, and their boss’s vendors, too) more reliable info about the identities of their coffee beans. Details are in the study “Voltammetric Electronic Tongue and Support Vector Machines for Identification of Selected Features in Mexican Coffee,” by Rocio Berenice Domínguez, Laura Moreno-Barón, Roberto Muñoz, […]

Research maw

This image of a terrifically toothy open mouth greets visitors to the Shi Lab’s web site at UCLA. We learned about it from Aatish Bhatia, who advises that you go to the site and “click on ‘Research‘ for full effect“: That “Research” page can lead to several little adventures, including a violent little presentation about […]

Was the microwave vital to the burn? The cheese pie question.

Forensic fun puzzle of the day: To what extent, if any, was the microwave vital to the import of this medical report? “Thermal burn of palate caused by microwave heated cheese-pie: A case report,” Cases Journal, Panagiotis Kafas and Christos Stavrianos,  vol.1 (2008): 191. The authors, at Aristotle University, Thessalonica, Greece, report: “A female patient, […]

Ichthyology’s most salacious study

Is this ichthyology’s most salacious study? “Female mouthbrooders in control of pre- and postmating sexual selection,” Marcel P. Haesler, Charlotte M. Lindeyer, Oliver Otti, Danielle Bonfils, Dik Heg and Michael Taborsky, Behavioral Ecology, epub June 14, 2011. (Thanks to investigator Charles Oppenheim for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at various institutions in Switzerland, […]