A new paper about hallucinations about little people evokes memories (for those who remember) of the fossilized mini-people perceived by Chonosuke Okamura, a discovery that led to Okamura being awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 1996. The new paper is “Leroy’s Elusive Little People: A Systematic Review on Lilliputian Hallucinations,” Jan Dirk Blom [pictured here […]
Tag: small
Endless Forms Most Stupid, Icky, and Small
Biology is not all cut, not all dry, not all Disneyfied, not always at all easy to classify tidily. This paper tries to kick any intellectually recalcitrant reader into realizing that: “Endless Forms Most Stupid, Icky, and Small: The Preponderance of Noncharismatic Invertebrates as Integral to a Biologically Sound View of Life,” Jesse E. Czekanski‐Moir […]
How Aesthetically Pleasing Is Your Country’s Diffraction Pattern?
You may be wondering how aesthetically pleasing is your country’s diffraction pattern. This new physics study proves that Albert F. Rigosi shares your mental hobby: “Analysis of Fraunhofer Diffraction Patterns’ Entropy Based on Apertures Shaped as National Borders,” Albert F. Rigosi, Optik, vol. 172, November 2018, pp. 1019-1025. (Thanks to John Ng for bringing this […]
To deal with climate change… make people smaller
The plan to engineer a shorter, smaller human race to cope with climate change is almost as big and bold as the schemes of people working to convince themselves climate change won’t affect them. The plan, at this point still sketchy, has three engineers. S Matthew Liao [pictured here] is a professor of bioethics at New York University. Anders Sandberg and Rebecca […]
MYSTERY: Big body through a little hole?
Some folks love a real-life forensic mystery, of which this is one: “A matter of large body passing through a small hole: The holeproof out the window,” F. Patel, Forensic Science International, Volume 56, Issue 2, October 1992, Pages 183–188. The author, at the Department of Forensic Medicine, UMDS Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, University […]
Effect of Skull Shape and Size on Musical Preference
Your skull, as much as what’s in it, may affect your musical taste — you may dislike a song because your head is too big (or too small) — suggests this study: “Music of the Body: An investigation of skull resonance and its influence on musical preference,” Jitwipar Suwangbutra, Rachelle Tobias and Michael S. Gordon […]
Sizeable Complaints of Average Men [organ]
Some men like to complain. Some people think about how to respond to those complaints. Thus this study: “Position Paper: Management of Men Complaining of a Small Penis Despite an Actually Normal Size,” Hussein Ghanem [pictured here, below], Sidney Glina, Pierre Assalian, Jacques Buvat, Journal of Sexual Medicine, vol. 10, no. 1, January 2013, pp. […]
Big and/or small: One and/or the other, and both
Richard Wiseman demonstrates, in this video, some different kinds of difference between big and small:
The vagueness of size: Little big star
The notion of size can be surprisingly vague. Here’s an example. Is this a big error, or a small error: NEWS.com.au would like to apologise for their error — as we all know, Betelgeuse is the second biggest star in the Orion constellation, not the universe. The quotation is from a news article that says: […]
Matters of Size
Behold the gentle interplay of measurement, urology, and psychology: “Penile Size and the ‘Small Penis Syndrome’,” Kevan R. Wylie and Ian Eardley, BJU International, vol. 99, no. 6, June 2007, pp. 1449-55. (Thanks to Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Porterbrook Clinic, Sheffield Care Trust, Sheffield, U.K., explain: