This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Cola: a swell tale — … If you are a male mouse who drinks lots of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, and if you mainly enjoy reading manly adventure stories, get yourself a copy of the latest write-up from […]
The team (most of it) that won the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize for Ecology—because they analyzed the bacteria dwelling in discarded wads of chewed chewing gum — has now also analyzed life forms that live in various kinds of table salt. Details are in the study: “Beyond Archaea: The Table Salt Bacteriome,” Leila Satari, Alba […]
The video above is styled after the roundabout-action machines designed, a few generations ago, by cartoonist Rube Goldberg. This one was designed by Joseph’s Machines. (Thanks to Bob Rosa for bringing the video to our attention.) Meanwhile, Rube Goldberg’s granddaughter is overseeing a contest to build a supremely inefficient hand-washing machine. Hilarie M. Sheets of […]
The Bavarian Pickle-Juice Experiment is using salty waste-water from pickle-making to keep roads from becoming icy. Ig Nobel Prize winner Elisabeth Oberzaucher alerts us to this, with the comment “Waste from the food industry keeps roads ice-free – I’m curious to see what comes out during the testing phase.” The publication Geo reports [in German, […]
The next time you sprinkle a few grains of salt into your soup, then, if you have the time for it, you could consider the theological implications of doing so. To assist with your considerations, don’t miss the work of Professor Lisanne D’Andrea Winslow of the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, MN, US, who has […]
Improbable recently profiled the work of the Miyashita Laboratory at Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan, where research is underway into the possibilities offered by ‘electro-gustation’. The lab has not only invented the electric chopsticks but has also investigated a possible way of encouraging diners to use less salt on their potato chips – with the aid […]
In America, potato chips carry more than grease and salt. They carry meaning. That’s the message carried by this new study: “Authenticity in America: Class Distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising,” Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky [pictured here], Gastronomica, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter 2012), pp. 46-54. The authors explain: “Our study uses the language of […]
Investigator Ruby Norton writes: My occasionally-stupid husband was having one of his occasional stupid days today. He brought me home a gift: a bottle of something with the brand name “Liquid Oxygen“. You might expect liquid oxygen would be cold. This isn’t cold. And mostly, it’s not oxygen. According to the manufacturer, it’s basically water […]