Non-fossil / Quantum sentence / Unrelax music / Slime mold watch

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Fossil or beehive? — … And the snideness? That isn’t unusual, either. Nor is it new. In 1934, the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences printed a report called “The supposed fossil ear of maize from Cuzco, Peru”. Quantum […]

A look back at the prize-winning anti-car-jacking flamethrower

Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong were awarded the 1999 Ig Nobel Peace Prize, for inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower. (Patent WO/1999/032331, “A Security System for a Vehicle“) Now, in 2023, The South African news organization takes a look back at one of South Africa’s most spectacular but least financially rewarding inventions. […]

The Triumphal Return of Tiny (Ig Nobel Prize-winning) Tamagotchi

Bandai America is bringing the nostalgia-infused virtual pet craze of “Tamagotchi” to a 21st century audience with “Tamagotchi On,” a revamped take on the keychain-sized plastic egg toy that launches May 13. So reports Variety, the show business newspaper, which goes on to give some historical context: Tamagotchi was originally invented by Bandai’s Aki Maita. She […]