Results of the Removement of the Three Minutes Irritating Music [research study]

“Removement of the Three Minutes Irritating Music Produced No Incremental Relaxation,” Wei-Ta Hsiao, Chung-Hung Hong, Hui-Min Wang, Sheng-Chieh Huang, Kai-Yu Shao, Shi-Han Luo, Wei-Chun Chiu, et al., Second International Conference on Innovations in Bio-inspired Computing and Applications (IBICA), 2011, pp. 57-60. IEEE, 2011. The authors, at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, report: “This paper studies […]

Do Test-Takers Pay Attention to Rock Lyrics? [research study]

“Effects of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Rock Songs on Projective and Structured Tests,” C.E. Wanamaker and M. Reznikoff, Journal of Psychology, vol. 123, no. 6, November 1989, pp. 561-570. The authors, at Fordham University, Bronx, NY, conclude that: “The findings are congruent with other investigators’ reports that subjects do not pay attention to rock lyrics. ” […]

Grunting for advantage (in karate) – new study

There is a growing body of research into the effects of ‘grunting’ in sports. Previous studies have mostly investigated tennis grunts *, but now a new investigation has examined grunting in karate. A team from the psychology departments at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, US, and the University of British Columbia, Canada, measured the […]

The Choo Lab’s Humming Generator

Many research groups across the world are in the process of developing so-called ‘Energy Harvesting’ (EH) techniques to extract electrical energy from human actions. (see for example, Implementing a knee-energy harvester). The Choo Lab at Caltech specializes in such things, and researchers there have recently developed a system which is designed to power portable electronic […]

The purpose of the prominent human external nose (a theory)

Many might have wondered, at one time or another, about the purpose of the prominent human external nose. Of those people, Howard D. Stupak, M.D., who is Assistant Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery and Chair, Department of Otolaryngology at Jacobi Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, has a […]