Words for Food in Your Mouth, an Apple a Day, Eating the Shrew, an Epidemic of Penile Amputations, Reactions to Chicken Nuggets, Ig and Beyond, What Matters in NBA Games, Why Spaghetti, and What Your Gut Says Psychoanalytically. In episode #209, Marc Abrahams shows some unfamiliar research studies to Jean Berko Gleason, Chris Cotsapas, Kishore […]
Tag: shrew
A Person Who Swallowed a Snake Whole (But Died)
This new study, describing a now-long-dead person who ate a snake whole, is reminiscent of the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study about swallowing a shrew. The new study is: “Analysis of a coprolite from Conejo Shelter, Texas: Potential ritualistic viperous snake consumption,” Elanor M. Sonderman, Crystal A. Dozier, Morgan F. Smith, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, […]
Building conclusions from the remnants of excreted hare bones
“How did they reach that conclusion? … If you eat a shrew whole, and excrete its bones, the bones will have specific hallmarks of human digestion, typified by the concentration of stomach acid and so on. In fact a scientific team won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2013 for studying what happens to shrew bones […]
The old lady, the young man, and the swallowed shrew
In the title of this blog post, the old lady is hypothetical, the young man is real, and so is the shrew. The old lady appears in this item in the Cardunculus blog: One of the cats was sick in the gravel, but the Systems Administrator had to clear it up as I was out […]
Podcast 29: Eat a shrew, and an epidemic of penile amputations
The secret of why onions make people cry; the scientist who ate and excreted a shrew; the one-armed man who was arrested for applauding; the question of when cows lie down and stand up; and surgical management of an epidemic of penile amputations in Siam; and a cat unexpectedly taking over the podcast — all these all […]
“Swallow the shrew” becomes a business slogan
Apparently, an Ig Nobel Prize-winning experiment has inspired use of a new slogan in the business world. The Transomeme blog says: At the recent 23rd First Annual IgNobel Prize ceremony, the Anthropology award went to the researchers that studied what happens when shrew bones pass through the human digestive system. I’m not kidding. Rather than building a complex system […]
A Peek Inside the Ig Nobel Prize Selection Committee Process
It’s unfortunate that the workings of the Ig Nobel Prize Selection Committee are off-limits to outside observers. Unfortunate but necessary, as adding observers (let alone cameras) would spoil the atmosphere, which can be funny, fascinating, and contentious. But occasionally there is a story from the meetings that should be told. The committee was assembled and […]