Paper-Airplane-Throwing is a gleeful tradition in the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. You or your institution can submit a video to be included in the 2022 ceremony — The deadline for that is July 31, 2022. We especially welcome schools and libraries (feel free to display your school or library name blatantly, if you wish!). Have […]
Tag: paper
Throw a paper airplane at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony!
The ceremony web page tells how to make your paper-plane-throwing video, and submit it.
Should One Feed Cooking Oil to One’s Paper Shredder?
“Feed Cooking Oil to Your Paper Shredders” is a topic opined upon in the wikiHow web site. The advice is presumably just as valuable to anyone who has but one paper shredder: Oiling an office shredder is an important part of your routine. While the frequency of oiling depends on the type of shredder and […]
Throw Your Paper Airplane Video into the Ig Nobel Ceremony
Would you like to throw a paper airplane, as a visible part of the 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony? You can! Make a little video, and send it to us. (Because of the pandemic, this year, like last year, the ceremony is happening entirely online—rather than in its traditional home, Harvard University’s Sanders […]
Associations: Penrose Tiling and toilet paper
Why would London’s Science Museum permanently archive four rolls of Kleenex toilet paper from 1997? The answer lies in the design of its embossed cushioning pattern . . . The tiled design is a version of Penrose Tiling – a mathematically repeating pattern which was devised (or if you prefer discovered) by Nobel Prize winner Sir […]
Migrant Warning: Crossing the Coffee-Cup Barrier
When you get a cup of coffee from a vending machine, are you getting a soupćon of ink in your drink? This study looks into that question: “Determination the Set-Off Migration of Ink in Cardboard-Cups Used in Coffee Vending Machines,” Esther Asensio, Teresa Peiro, and Cristina Nerín, Food and Chemical Toxicology, epub 2019. The authors, […]
Wrinkled sheets, crumpled paper
New research about how paper crumples was done in the same chunk of Harvard that produced an Ig Nobel Prize-winning study about how sheets get wrinkled. It builds on—and adds new wrinkles to—that earlier research. Siobhan Roberts reports, in the New York Times, about the paper-crumpling study: This Is the Way the Paper Crumples In a […]
“Mind the [wildcard] gap” — in academic paper titles
If you’ve ever used The Tube (the underground railway system) in London, there’s a very good chance you’ll know about this announcement : What’s perhaps less well known is the wealth (perhaps even the plethora) of academic papers which have taken advantage of the phrase in their titles. Here are but a few examples : […]
Toilet paper papers – a partial resumé
Following on from our recent note regarding ‘A Time/Cost Assessment of Toilet-Paper Folding, Worldwide’ may we also recommend a non-exhaustive selection of other toilet paper papers which may be perused at your convenience :- ● A System for Identifying Toilet User by Characteristics of Paper Roll Rotation ● Objective Hand Measurement of Toilet Paper ● […]
A randomness as to which of a scientist’s publications will have the most oomph
Despite common belief (and some earlier research on the question) that success tends to come early for scientists, a scientist’s single most successful publication is likely to occur at any point in the sequence of papers that she or he publishes. That’s the gist of a new study. The study explains that people in general tend to produce […]