How much time will a dripped drop of coffee be a drop, before it loses its full-bodied nature? This study sniffs into the question: “On the Lifetime of a Coffee Drop,” Paul Bienvenu, Haruka Hitomi, and David Quéré, Soft Matter, epub 2026. The authors, at PSL Research University, ESPCI-Paris, France, report: As we know, a […]
UPDATE JULY 25, 2024. We found the new Miss Sweetie Poo. You can see her perform her duties at the ceremony. We are looking for a new Miss Sweetie Poo, for this year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. The 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen on Thursday evening, September 12, 2024, at MIT […]
Some scientists are awakening to the possibility that there are variations in sleepiness related to time of day. Other scientists are already awake to that possibility. All scientists are to some or other degree either likely or unlikely to read this study about the matter: “Comment on Short-term Variation in Subjective Sleepiness,” C.A. Eriksen, T. […]
The influence of the Ig Nobel Prize slowly seeps into academia — especially in techniques for piquing people’s curiosity and attention. Here’s a new, 2023 example. The Harvard Gazette, in a report headlined “The snappy book talk: ‘When does that happen in academia?’ ” tells of an innovative event: “Scholars had seven minutes to explain […]