A bevy of Ig Nobel Prize winners — scientists who have done things that make people LAUGH, then THINK — will strut their stuff in the 2014 Ig Nobel tour of Europe. It happens March 14—April 2. Here’s a quick list of events: Fri, March 14 …. LONDON, Imperial College. Mon, March 17 …. COVENTRY, […]
Tag: UK
Why it will take 6,000 dead goats to build Britain’s high speed railway
A new UK railway project will indirectly require thousands of dead goats, explains the IanVisits Blog. It’s a matter of vellum: If, or when the High Speed 2 railway is constructed, it will require roughly 6,000 dead goats. This curious statement comes from an old technicality as Acts of Parliament, when passed into law are still […]
Smelov’s investigation of HPV on toilet seats in international airports
Lead author Smelov and colleagues write, in this letter to a medical journal, about a careful investigation that may (and may not) have small or nonexistent implications: “Are human papillomavirus DNA prevalences providing high-flying estimates of infection? An international survey of HPV detection on environmental surfaces,” Vitaly Smelov [pictured here], Carina Eklund, Laila Sara Arroyo […]
From the mouths of babes: An existential statistic [British]
The UK’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey includes a variable called “resbby — Whether respondent is baby“. The July-September 2011 survey reports that the value of this variable is YES for 228 of the 105488 respondents. Here is the pertinent detail from that report: Here is that same detail, this time including the full graph: A year later, […]