If you like equations, here’s just part of the fun you’ll find in the newly published paper “Social cycling and conditional responses in the Rock-Paper-Scissors game” (arXiv:1404.5199): (Thanks to Florian Gallwitz for bringing this to our attention.) BONUS: Rock, paper, scissors, robot, monkey BONUS: Rock, scissors, monkey
Tag: paper
Gibberish scholarship happily fills the cracks, again
Comes another reminder that some scholarly journals, like some people, are less careful than others. [Another way to put this: if the ONLY thing you know about a report is that it was published in “a scholarly journal”, then you know almost nothing about it.] Richard van Noorden reports, in Nature: The publishers Springer and IEEE are […]
Rolled-up bits of paper in her head
On paper, human anatomy can seem simple, especially in books with titles such as Clinical Anatomy Made Ridiculously Simple. But… Made of paper—quilled (rolled) paper—it most certainly is not. Not in the example here, anyway. The Collosal blog features some of the work of Lisa Nilsson, including this photo of one of her heads: (Thanks to […]
Rock, paper, scissors, robot, monkey
“In this research we develop a janken (rock-paper-scissors) robot with 100% winning rate as one example of human-machine cooperation systems. Human being plays one of rock, paper and scissors at the timing of one, two, three. According to the timing, the robot hand plays one of three kinds so as to beat the human being. Recognition […]
“Intellectual Sewing”: Keeping Proust in Stitches
A new academic sub-discipline is born: “Sewing Proust: Patchwork as Critical Practice,” Rhiannon Williams [pictured here], Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, Volume 1, Number 1, November 2013 , pp. 43-56. (Thanks to investigator Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at the University of Derby, explains: “I describe my own […]
Paper aeroplane ‘aerogami’ drones (paper)
Could “Disposable Folded Cellulose-Substrate Micro-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” – known to some as paper aeroplanes – be used as disposable, biodegradable monitoring-and-surveillance drones? A report presented at the Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, 3-5 Dec 2012, suggests just that. Researcher Dr. Paul Pounds, at the University of Queensland Australia, explains in his paper : ‘Paper […]
The man who separates cookies
Artist David Neevel, labeling himself as a “physicist”, though he seems to mean “engineer”, presents this video of himself with a machine that separates the components of an Oreo cookie: Neevel is also noted for his use, on another project, of paper airplanes: (Thanks to investigator Sally Ramos for bringing this to our attention.)
A blood-typing test credited to Harry Potter, sort of
A new study credits the author of the Harry Potter books for inspiring a biomedical innovation: “Paper-Based Blood Typing Device That Reports Patient’s Blood Type ‘in Writing’“, Miaosi Li, Junfei Tian, Mohammad Al-Tamimi, Wei Shen, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, epub April 18, 2012. The authors, at Monash University, explain: “A low-cost bioactive paper device is designed […]
Mechanical high security, on paper: The paper safe
In an age when security — especially security on paper — is all the rage, Rob Ives designed this all-paper working safe:
On and in crumpled paper
Crumpled paper fascinates physicists, most of whom nevertheless continue to throw away most of the paper they crumple. But some do pause to analyze what they’ve wrought. Wired reports about a recent case of this: “Crush a piece of typing paper into the size of a golf ball, and suddenly it becomes a very stiff […]