In answer to the question “How many monofenestratan pterosaurs are named after famous cartoonists?”, Improbable hazards a guess that the answer is :“One”. Being : Cuspicephalus scarfi which is named (say its describers David Martill and Steve Etches of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, UK) “After artist/cartoonist Gerald […]
Tag: Names
Name That Child Computationally
A new study outlines how the Google PageRank algorithm is used to choose a name for a new child. In accord with mathematicians’ traditional practice, the study does not explicitly name the name of even one child: “Recommending Given Names – Mining Relatedness of Given Names based on Data from the Social Web,” Folke Mitzlaff […]
Lipstick names — a textual analysis
Anyone who has attempted to combine the ‘Presentation of Self’ theories of Erving Goffman and the semiotic modelling methods of Roland Gérard Barthes with regard to the names of lipsticks, could well consult the work of professor Debra Merskin (of the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, US), who has categorised […]
A new standard way to measure the threshold of personal tragedy
Some skilled psychologists see big consequences aborning in seemingly trivial things. Here’s an example. This particular seemingly trivial thing happens — or doesn’t happen — at online dating sites. The researchers describe it in a quick phrase: “as indicated by fewer first visits to their dating profiles“. This is big: a newly-recognized threshold for assessing personal […]