The Ig Nobel Japan Tour has its final event tonight, with an event at Ishikawa Prefectural University on Thursday, September 27. WHERE: Ishikawa Prefectural University, Hokkoku Shimbun Interchange Hall (2-1 Minami-cho, Kanazawa City). WHEN: 17:30 Marc Abrahams and Ig Nobel Prize winners Yukio Hirose, and Hidehiko Kumagai (who is also president of the university) & Shinsuke Imai will discuss the […]
Tag: pigeon
Kinect and pigeon behavior
Technology has moved beyond anything B.F. Skinner had available when he did his imaginative pigeon-behavior experiments. This study tells of the latest advance: “A Kinect-based system for automatic recording of some pigeon behaviors,” Damian M. Lyons , James S. MacDonall, Kelly M. Cunningham, Behavior Research Methods, December 2015, Volume 47, Issue 4, pp 1044-1054. (Thanks to Andrew Caines […]
Thai Dove Cooing Contests – an analysis
Some might say that despite their popularity, Thai dove-cooing contests, which have now been held for more than 30 years, have not received the academic attention they deserve. Either way, things changed with the 2005 (#9) edition of the journal MANUSYA:Journal of Humanities (a publication of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand) in which Professor Wanni […]
Almost-poisoning pigeons in the park
As the heavens inevitably cover every mountain peak with snow, so do pigeons unstoppably deposit a protective white layer atop every outdoor statue – or so people believed. Yukio Hirose shocked and delighted the world by disproving one of these two supposedly eternal truths. He used arsenic to do it. Chemistry provides a way to communicate […]
Dead pigeon in black soap
American poultry escaped from a disaster. Recently, agricultural specialists of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Baltimore-Washington International Airport discovered the head of a bird in the luggage of a passenger from Nigeria. The bird was sacrificed and the head “taken for a friend”. It was brought to the US, encrusted in homemade black […]