This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Best interests at heart? — Feedback is fascinated by the final eight words in this statement: “Disadvantages include the competitive element associated with racing, which creates a strong incentive to kill birds where this is not in […]
If you’re unsure of the derivation of the word ‘Shoegaze’ (as used to describe a musical genre) turn to page 13 of ‘Theater of jambands: Performance of resistance’ a dissertation presented to the Department of Theater Arts and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree […]
Dr. Harinder Jaseja, who is Associate Professor of Physiology at the Gajra Raja Medical College, Gwalior, India, has undertaken one of the very few studies investigating the efficacy (or otherwise) of ‘shoe smell’ to control epileptic attacks. Out of a group of 32 epilepsy sufferers, 3 were given the opportunity to use the smelling shoe-smell […]
This study looks at the gait of the shoeless: “To what extent does not wearing shoes affect the local dynamic stability of the gait? Effect size and intra-session repeatability,” Philippe Terrier, Fabienne Reynard, http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5510, March 5, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Francis Villatoro for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Institute for Research in […]
Two reports about eating leather (allegedly and really): 1. From 1891, in the report “Report on a beetle destroying boots & shoes in Sydney,” by Walter Wilson Froggatt, on page 4: 2. 1980, in the film “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe“:
Sir David Attenborough’s sonorous tones add a measure of gravitas to any nature documentary. In this video from BBC One’s Graham Norton Show, Sir Attenborough lends the power of his voice to narrate a video of a retifistic tortoise’s unsuccessful advances toward a shoe. (HT to Jerry Coyne for sharing this via his blog) Bonus: […]
A product called The Swiss Protection Sock appears to extend the principle that was honored by the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in public health. That prize was awarded to Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if […]
Matt Shipman at The Abstract Blog reports on a Rube-Goldbergian invention for pedestrians: Why You Would Put A Radar In Your Shoe People rely on GPS devices to make sure they don’t get lost. But GPS devices rely on satellite connections, which are not always available…. But you can track your movements using an inertial […]
The Holy foot protector, US patent #3511233, was granted to Elbert Holy, Jr. on May 12, 1970. These technical drawings are from the patent document. Click on the image to see an enlargement. The video below is not necessarily related, at least directly, to the Holy foot protector.
When is a shoe like a face? The answer (or one answer, at least) is in the study: “Statistical Discrimination of Footwear: A Method for the Comparison of Accidentals on Shoe Outsoles Inspired by Facial Recognition Techniques,” Nicholas Dominick Koslap Petraco, Carol Gambino, Thomas A. Kubic, Dayhana Olivio and Nicholas Petraco, J Forensic Sci, Vol. […]