For people who like to find faults, good news appeared in 1989, in this study: “Locating Faults in a Constant Number of Parallel Testing Rounds,” Richard Beigel, S. Rao Kosaraju [pictured here], and Gregory F. Sullivan, Proceedings of the First Annual ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures, March 1989, pp. 189–198. The authors, at […]
Tag: testing
Volkswagen’s Ig Nobel Prize-winning research also used cartoon-watching monkeys
The research that won an Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize for Volkswagen also involved monkeys watching cartoons while they inhaled automobile fumes — a fact that was not publicly known at the time the prize was awarded. Nor was it known to the Ig Nobel Board of Governors. The monkeys/cartoons news was reported today by Jack […]
Advances in toilet system testing: Wigglers & Pseudo Poop
Whither waste? Toilet testing, not everyone’s cup of tea, makes things flow better, for society’s sake. Metafilter features a little roundup of toilet testing info (thanks to investigator Scott Langill for bringing it to our attention): Pseudo Poop for Testing Toilets Testing toilet flush performance naturally requires the replication of real-world loads. Striving for accuracy, […]
A new twist in forensic knicker-testing
A study in New Zealand tested the tearing of knickers, and found that meaningful results are not easy to obtain if one examines only the fabric itself: “Tearing of Knicker Fabrics,” T.J. Dann, D.J. Carr, R.M. Laing, B.E. Niven and J. Kieser, Forensic Science International, 217 (2012) 93–100. (Thanks to investigator Erwin Kompanje for bringing this […]
Gunbarrel testing in the big city
Where does one test gunbarrels in a big city? In London, one tests them at the Proof House of the Gunmakers Company, explains the Caroline’s Miscellany blog: On Commercial Road, E1 is a rather curious-looking little building, out of scale with the structures surrounding it… The current building of 1757 replaces one damaged by repeated […]
Kapow! Israeli army emulates Troy Hurtubise?
News reports (in the Israeli newspaper Globes, in the NANOJV defense intelligence blog, and elsewhere) say that on Wednesday, December 22, Israel’s army is going to test a new tank-defense system by firing live anti-tank missiles at a tank that contains two of its own soldiers. (Thanks to investigator Yossi Levi for bringing this to […]
Students, DNA, and hot dogs
Flora Lichtman of Science Friday interviewed “Brenda Tan and Matthew Cost, high school seniors from Trinity School in New York City, used a technique called DNA barcoding to find out what species were present in over 200 animal products.” A surprising finding: most street vendors’ hot dogs — at least the ones the students tested […]