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 […]
Tag: news
Awaiting the press release for the press release exaggerations study
We are eager to see the press release (if there is one) that heralds this research study: “Exaggerations and Caveats in Press Releases and Health-Related Science News,” Petroc Sumner, Solveiga Vivian-Griffiths, Jacky Boivin, Andrew Williams, Lewis Bott, Rachel Adams, Christos A. Venetis, Leanne Whelan, Bethan Hughes, and Christopher D. Chambers, PLoS One, vol. 11, no. 12, […]
Distinguishing Real vs Fake Tiger Penises [law enforcement guide]
This eight-page report is a practical guide for law enforcement officials: “Distinguishing Real vs Fake Tiger Penises,” Bonnie C. Yates, Identification Guides for Wildlife Law Enforcement No. 6., 2005, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, Ashland, Oregon. (Thanks to Silvan Urfer for bringing this to our attention.) The author reports: […]
Some news video looks at the 2017 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony
Here are some video news reports about the 27th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. (For lots more press accounts, dip into our Press Clips page.) El Pais [Spain] Mirror Weekly [Taiwan]: Euronews: NHK [Japan]: Livescience: VTC14 [Vietnam]: RTO [The Netherlands]: France Inter: Canal+ [France] Les IG Nobel, les prix Nobel des découvertes décalées (mais […]
‘Dog Stories’ (their value for journalists)
How can professional journalists draw public attention to important news stories? A team of investigators from the University of California and the University of Miami have a word of advice. And the word is ‘Dogs’. Their findings are published in PS: Political Science & Politics, (Volume 47, Issue 04, October 2014, pp 819-823) under the […]
The bad news sandwich
To set the scene, an Improbable joke. Doctor : “Ah, Mr. Smith, we have some good news and some bad news, which do you want first?” Mr. Smith : “Gimme the bad news doc.” Doctor : “We amputated the wrong foot.” Mr. Smith : “Agggggh ! – And the good news?” Doctor: “The other one’s […]
Tea — A perfectly filling beverage
Tea, when brewed and poured, is a liquid perfectly suited to filling otherwise empty space on a news site. It exactly fills whatever quantity and shape of space needs filling. Here’s an example, from the BBC news web site. The headline, as you can see, says: “Male tea drinkers ‘at greater risk of prostate cancer‘”: […]
People Want to Probe Uranus
Lots of people like to say they want to probe Uranus. Earthlings’ desires about that planet, and headline writers’ desires to write “probe Uranus” headlines, are again in the news. National Geographic‘s Breaking Orbit blog reports that “Europe Wants to Probe Uranus“: The Christian Science Monitor reports that “Scientists plan mission to probe Uranus“: (Thanks […]
Newspapers now in the future
Newspapers today, as prognosticated by T. Baron Russell in 1906 in his book A Hundred Years Hence: the regeneration of the newspaper will be forced upon the newspaper-office by the development of public intelligence.… a well-informed public will resent obvious garbling or clearly unfair selection. The newspaper reader will no longer (as now) want only […]
Stare at The Sun: breast bombs
A news source (Fox News) famed for its reliability, reprinting news from another news source (The Sun) famed for its reliability, applies this headline: Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes, Experts Warn The Sun accompanies its report with the image reproduced here. Thus does vital knowledge get spread to the general […]