A new computer peripheral device, manufactured by Uni-Creation Electronic (Xi’an) Co.,Ltd., is claimed to be easy on the eyes. (Thanks to Peter Langston for bringing this to our attention.)
Month: February 2005
Pop-Tart Forensics
"Engineer Ruled Expert Witness in Flaming Pop-Tart Case" reads the headline. It is an accurate description of what the news report reports. (Thanks to Mark Waldstein and other investigators for bringing this to our attention.)
Other Einsteins
People say "There is only one Einstein", but of course that is not so. In this, the official Einstein Year, when everyone celebrates Albert Einstein, let us not forget some of the other Einsteins… So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian
Bureaucratic toadying
Investigator Robert Bendesky writes: An editorial in the Winter 2004 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reports that a toad provided more correct responses to Medicare policy questions than Medicare customer service representatives. A 2004 GAO study found that 96 percent of the time, customer reps gave the wrong answer to physicians asking how to […]
Calling all performing British tea/coffee-brewing scientists
If you are (A) a scientist who (B) follows a good ritual for preparing either tea or coffee and you (C) are in Britain or (D) will be in Britain during the Ig Nobel Tour of the UK during March, and (E) you would enjoy BRIEFLY demonstrating that ritual onstage at one of the shows […]
A useful supplier?
Look at this uranium web site, suggested investigator John Bell, and check out the photo at the bottom of the page. We followed his suggestion.
The author’s heavy hand
According a Canadian press report: Margaret Atwood, author of futuristic fantasies The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, has invented a prototype remote autographing device that has the potential to revolutionize book signings. (Thanks to investigator Genevieve Reynolds for bringing this to our attention.)
How to fix a biologist
Do you, a biologist, feel intimidated by how complex everything is? Try reading Yuri Lazebnik‘s essay " Can a biologist fix a radio? –Or, what I learned while studying apoptosis," which was originally published in the journal Cancer Cell (vol. 2, no. 3, September 2002, pp. 179-82). (Thanks to Karen Hopkin for bringing this to […]
Music experiments
Many experiments come to mind when one listens to the singing of experimental singers such as Florence Foster Jenkins.
Improbable Research show Friday in DC
If you are in or near Washington, DC this Friday night (Feb 18, 2005), come to the free Improbable Research show at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. This is our annual show that’s part of the AAAS’s big meeting. Bring family and friends. You’ll get to meet THREE living Ig Nobel Prize winners. And see […]