This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are the beginnings of each of them: Spacey superpowers — Some people have a superior knowledge, and maybe control, of space and direction. That is evident in the harvest from Feedback’s call to identify trivial superpowers – a person’s ability to reliably do […]
Karen A. Fox and friends developed a new way to test whether—or not—a bobcat has a goodly amount of domestic cat inside it. They (Fox and friends) tell the story in a newly published study: “A Novel Test for Determination of Wild Felid-Domestic Cat Hybridization,” E.S. Chiu, K. Fox, L. Wolfe, and S. Vandewoude, Forensic […]
“Although he has written books called What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee and Why I am Not a Scientist, he would like it to be known, for the record, that he is about 98% scientist, and not a chimpanzee. ” He is Jonathan Marks.
Love has always been difficult to define exactly. A newly published study adds nuance, or at least data, to the concept. The study is: “Interspecies sexual behaviour between a male Japanese macaque and female sika deer,” Marie Pelé, Alexandre Bonnefoy, Masaki Shimada, and Cédric Sueur, Primates, epub January 2017. The authors, in Strasbourg, France and […]
Act 3 — the spectacular finale of the 3-act mini-opera “The Best Life”, about about a competition to choose the best species of life — that’s this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams introduces the thrilling conclusion of the mini-opera “The Best Life,” which premiered as part of the 2015 Ig Nobel Prize […]
Act 2 of the 3-act mini-opera “The Best Life”, about about a competition to choose the best species of life — that’s this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams introduces Act 2 of the mini-opera “The Best Life,” which premiered as part of the 2015 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard’s Sanders […]
Act 1 of the 3-act mini-opera “The Best Life”, about about a competition to choose the best species of life — that’s this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams introduces Act 1 of the mini-opera “The Best Life,” which premiered as part of the 2015 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard’s […]
The US Armed Forces Pest Management Board presents… The Living Hazards Database The Living Hazards Database (LHD) is a comprehensive compilation of more than 500 species worldwide, which are reported to cause serious injury or death of humans…. Information on each species listed includes: description, habitat, behavior, known harmful effects, geographic distribution, taxonomy, and a representative […]
A new opera, called “The Best Life“, will premiere next week — as part of the Twenty-Fifth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Here’s the story line of “The Best Life“, as explained in the program that will be handed to all 1100 audience members in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre: The story: It’s the day before the greatest competition […]
“At a social insect conference, the whole room broke into laughter,” writes Myrmecos about the moment someone displayed this chart: Myrmecos explains: “Pachycondyla, among the most common ants in tropical regions worldwide, turns out to be a motley assortment of unrelated species. While the taxonomy of the world’s 12,000 or so ant species is obviously still […]