This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Learning from mole rats — Marketers who specialise in inflammation of the populace won’t have missed the Journal of Experimental Biology‘s appreciation of hyaluronan. Beneath the headline “Underground anti-aging secrets from burrowing rodents“, the journal says… Anarchist […]
The 24th annual Dead Duck Day celebration happens on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Dead Duck Day honors the mallard duck that became known to science as the first (documented) ‘victim’ of homosexual necrophilia in that species, and earned its discoverer, Kees Moeliker, the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize. Kees Moeliker, who is now director of the […]
Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 is the 23rd edition of Dead Duck Day, arriving precisely one year after last year’s Dead Duck Day. At exactly 17:55 h [Rotterdam time] we will honor the mallard duck that became known to science as the first (documented) ‘victim’ of homosexual necrophilia in that species, and earned its discoverer the […]
Read, if you will, the official program [in Dutch] for this year’s Dead Duck Day celebration—which will happen June 5, at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dead Duck Day honors the mallard duck that became known to science as the first (documented) ‘victim’ of homosexual necrophilia in that species. The study that […]
You are invited to the grand public premier of Kees Moeliker (scientist, discoverer of the actual duck) and Dan Gillingwater (composer)’s Homosexual Necrophiliac Duck Opera. Based on Kees Moeliker’s 2003 Ig Nobel Prize-winning study “The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard“. The performances will take place on 8th and 9th August 2015 at Kings Place, […]
Sad news. ‘Ornithology Exchange’ reported the death of Dr. Robert W. Dickerman (1926). Dickerman was the biologist who gave necrophilia a good name. Chiefly known as a specimen-based ornithologist and tireless collector of scientific specimens, Bob Dickerman has enriched the collections of natural history museums, from Alaska to New Mexico, and described dozens of new […]
Ig Nobel Prize winner Kees Moeliker’s TED talk is now online. The people at TED chose to debut it on April 1: Kees was awarded the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for biology, for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. [REFERENCE: “The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Anas […]
What with homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck monopolizing attention, heterosexual necrophilia in frogs — especially functional necrophilia — has gotten scant mention. That imbalance is changing, largely due to this study: “Functional necrophilia: a profitable anuran reproductive strategy?” J.T. Izzo, D.J. Rodrigues, M. Menin, A.P. Lima and W.E. Magnusson, Journal of Natural History, vol. 46, […]
The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) has joined the club of bird species that are known to be engaged in necrophiliac behavior. In fact, in retrospect, the Adélie penguin is the first ever bird species in which necrophilia has been observed. In a publication, titled ‘Dr. George Murray Levick (1876–1956): unpublished notes on the sexual habits […]
Necrophilia might soon become specifically legal in Egypt, within specific bounds, according to this report by Abeer Tayel in Al Arabiya News: Egypt’s women urge MPs not to pass early marriage, sex-after-death laws: report Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated parliament not to approve two controversial laws on the minimum […]