A markedly penetrating report, involving fingers, tongues, and holes: “Differences in the oral size illusions produced by cross-modality matching of peg and hole stimuli by the tongue and fingers in humans,” Bruce Melvin and Robin Orchardson, Archives of Oral Biology, vol. 46, no. 3, March 2001, pp. 209-13. The authors, at the University of Glasgow, […]
Tag: tongue
Combining e-noses, e-tongues and e-eyes (study)
You might have come across a sensor device called an ‘Electronic Nose’ (also known as an e-nose). ‘Electronic Tongues’ (e-tongues) are also available. And of course there are various types of ‘Electronic Eyes’ (e-eyes). For a rare example of an academic paper which describes the application of all three at the same time, see: ‘Combination […]
The Gendering of the Ear in Early Modern England (new study)
“While critics discuss the link between female speech and sexual looseness, and silence and chastity, many have overlooked the prerequisite for obedience – hearing and its agent, the ear. The link between the ear and vagina is often ignored because of the proneness to perceive ears as passive orifices (Kilgour 131; Woodbridge 256). However, ears […]
A better-rounded understanding of why wombat poo is cubic
Ian Sample reports, in The Guardian, a new discovery by Ig Nobel Prize winners, about wombat poo shape: Scientists unravel secret of cube-shaped wombat faeces Researchers investigate why excrement emerges in awkward-shaped blocks … “My curiosity got triggered when I realised that cubical feces exist,” said Patricia Yang pictured below], a postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering […]
The insides of a singer singing, and a talker talking
The insides of a singer singing are on display in this video, produced by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. And here’s a look inside a talker talking: The Max Planck Institute is celebrating some of the work that made this kind of video possible. In particular, they say: The European Patent […]
What the Frog’s Saliva Does for the Frog’s Tongue
Ig Nobel Prize winner David (“urination duration in mammals”) Hu and colleagues turned their intense gaze toward frog tongues and saliva. They published this study: “Frogs use a viscoelastic tongue and non-Newtonian saliva to catch prey,” Alexis C. Noel, Hao-Yuan Guo, Mark Mandica, David L. Hu, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 2017, 14, 20160764. […]
The Butcher’s Tongue Illusion (update)
Could we inform those who wish to experiment in a hands-on practical way with the Butcher’s Tongue Illusion (which we highlighted [highlit?] back in Oct 2014, see: ‘The Butcher’s Tongue Illusion (from the chip-crunch manipulator’), that the paper provides a link to DiscountMagic where fake tongues (like the one used in the experiments) can be […]
The taste of electric currents (part 1 of 2)
It was sometime around 1752 that Johann Georg Sulzer decided (for reasons best known to himself) to put the tip of his tongue between two plates of (different) metal whose edges were in contact. The results were, quite literally, shocking. He’d not only inadvertently stumbled across one of the world’s first electrolytic batteries, but it […]
Tongue ID
[sometimes it seems as though] As soon a new biometric security technology is developed, someone will find a way to bypass it. (see, for example, Progress in Fake-Finger Thwarting Improbable Research, April 16th, 2010). Steps towards implementing so-called ‘liveness detection’ mechanisms, which detect inert fakes, have helped. But in an ideal world, biometricians would like […]
Report of a lady who used her tongue to good medical effect
A new medical report suggests this limerick: A lady, by using her tongue, Distinguished (herself!) from among The medical range Of things that are strange, Swollen, or sunken, or hung. The report is: “Using the tongue to palpate a lesion in the postnasal space: a unique case of self-diagnosis,” Nora Haloob, Robert Nash, BMJ Case […]