The story of how the sound of herring expelling gas through their rear ends became mistakenly taken, by Swedish government officials, as evidence of invading Soviet submarines, gets a new, beautifully stylish telling in a new episode of the RadioLab podcast: Red Herring It was the early 80s, the height of the Cold War, when […]
Tag: submarine
The incident of the Suspected-Soviet-Sub, the Swedish Navy, and the Farting Herring
“Fishes caused Sweden to be afraid of being attacked by Soviet submarines in 1982” is a report by VN Express (in Vietnamese) about the secret incident that years later produced the 2004 Ig Nobel Biology Prize. The central figures in the story: farting herring. It is an open question, biologically speaking, whether the herring do […]
The place of fish farting in fish flirting and in international relations
The two independent research studies about herring farts gave different insights: one that fish probably use farting to communicate, the other that farting herrings in Stockholm harbor were mistakenly identified as Soviet submarines. Brian Owens appreciates these studies — their two sets of scientists shared the 2004 Ig Nobel Biology Prize — in an article […]
Chinese nuclear-reactor-and-flying-saucer invention
It is possible to build a combination nuclear reactor and flying saucer, in the view of inventor Jiubin Chen, who filed this patent application, in the year 2008: “Nuclear reactor and flying saucer manufactured thereby,” Chinese patent application 101162005 (A), 2008-04-16. Inventor(s): JIUBIN CHEN. “The invention relates to a nuclear reactor and a flying disk manufactured […]
The curious true tale of the the Swedish prime minister, a Soviet submarine, and farting herring
Professor Magnus Whalberg took part, many years ago, in an odd historic passage that involved the Swedish prime minister (Carl Bildt), a Soviet submarine, and farting herring. Years after the event, in 2004, Whalberg and his colleague Håkan Westerberg were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize — though the Ig Nobel Board of Governors was at the time completely unaware […]
How herring farts almost led to a diplomatic crisis
A video from TEDx Goteborg, with this description; How can herring farts in the Stockholm archipelago almost lead to a diplomatic crisis? Or a bra be converted into a gas mask in case of emergency? To Magnus Wahlberg this is everyday stuff, and proof that science doesn’t have to be dull to be important. He […]
Herring farts, Russian submarines & the PM on Swedish TV
Tonight the “Vetenskapens Värld” program on Sweden’s Swedish SVT2 network broadcast a pair of reports, back-to-back, about the Ig Nobel Prizes. Report # 1 is about the recent Ig Nobel Tour‘s visit to Stockholm. Report #2 focuses the history behind one part of that visit — the now-it-can-be-told story of how, some years ago, herring farts prevented the […]
Fish farts, Russian submarines, the Swedish Foreign Minister
Maggie Koerth-Baker of Boing-Boing interviewed several journalists at the AAAS Annual Meeting last week in Vancouver, about what they had learned at the meeting. Here’s me, blabbing on about a new little chapter in the story of how fish farts almost caused a diplomatic crisis between Russia and Sweden, and might cause a new little kerfuffle […]