Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 190

Chantal Roggeman joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Social Scientists

Chantal Roggeman has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). She says:

I have been told I may never cut my hair, because people would no longer recognize me. Indeed, in international gatherings, I am recognized as “the woman with the long blond hair”. Blond is my trademark, and I enjoy making “dumb blond” jokes in the first person. I have occasionally colored my hair blue, green, orange, purple, pink and fluo-yellow, which I then classify as “artificial intelligence”.

Chantal Roggeman, Ph.D., LFHCfS

Medical Advisor, Immunology

MSD Belgium

Belgium

Kategoria and Apologia That Combine to Incite Journalistic Antapologia

A rare study—though by no means the world’s first—that specifically examines the kategoria and apologia that combine to incite journalistic antapologia, is now available:

“Flag on the Play—A 5-Year Analysis of the Kategoria and Apologia That Combine to Incite Journalistic Antapologia in Sports Reporting,”  Jennifer L. Harker, published online in the Journal of Communication and Sport, in 2017.

So far as we are aware, there is a dearth of studies that specifically examine the kategoria and apologia that combine to quell journalistic antapologia.

Vagina Music on Tour: “The myth of talking to the baby through the mother’s belly is history”

The two doctors who led the vagina-music study—which demonstrated that babies respond more strongly to music played electromechanically in the mother’s vagina than to music played electromechanically on the mother’s belly—and which was honored with an Ig Nobel Prize, appeared in the recent Ig Nobel spring EuroTour. Marisa López-Teijón and Álex García-Faura, of Institut Marquès in Barcelona, spread music, information, and cheer to audiences in Sweden and Denmark. At event, they demonstrated Babypod, the vagina-music produce that was developed as part of that research project.

They subsequently produced this video, documenting some of their work and some of their appearances on stage in Scandinavia:

La Vanguardia newspaper summed it up, under the headline “El mito de hablarle al bebé a través de la barriga de la madre es historia” [“The myth of talking to the baby through the mother’s belly is history”].

Grunting for advantage (in karate) – new study

There is a growing body of research into the effects of ‘grunting’ in sports. Previous studies have mostly investigated tennis grunts *, but now a new investigation has examined grunting in karate.

A team from the psychology departments at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, US, and the University of British Columbia, Canada, measured the kick-strength of karate exponents in grunting and non-grunting modes. They also measured the possible distraction levels of those observing grunters and non-grunters.

“Overall, the investigation conducted here suggests that grunting is advantageous in terms of not only generating increased force when kicking, but also as a means of distracting an opponent.”

As a result of their studies, the authors also offer their opinion on whether grunting should, or should not be considered cheating : –

“It is our opinion that because grunting leads to increased force when kicking (or hitting a ball), then it is difficult to construe grunting as cheating, as it is a mechanism that enables a player to generate greater force. Moreover, while the distraction that accompanies the grunt further benefits the grunter, the fact that the grunt is used to create more force appears to remove the onus of responsibility from the grunter, and place the burden firmly on the opponent to develop ways to cope with the grunt.”

See: Grunting’s competitive advantage: Considerations of force and distraction PLoS ONE 13(2): e0192939, Feb. 2018.

* Note: Links to several tennis grunt studies can be found in the reference section at the end of the paper.

Daniel Rathbun joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)

Daniel Rathbun has joined the LFHCfS – The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

“They’ll never let you have long hair in the real world. You’ll never get a real job looking like a hippy.” I was told in small-town Texas.  Well I showed them!  I showed them all!!! —especially the blind patients whose visual prostheses I help to develop. (The young me is shown in this photo flanked by inspirations and Nobel Laureates David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel.) Now I now apply my talents to bionic vision and inspiring future generations of luxuriantly coiffed young scientists.

Daniel Rathbun, Ph.D., LFHCfS

Junior Group Leader

Eberhard-Karls-University, Tuebingen

Centre for Ophthalmology

Institute for Ophthalmic Research

Experimental Retinal Prosthetics Group

Tuebingen, Germany

Allergy to a Partially Extraterrestrial Object

A touching allergy, an encounter of an unusual kind (an encounter of a third kind, according to some classifications), made its way into a medical journal report:

“Contact allergy to a meteorite: An interesting consequence of nickel allergy,” L. Malinauskiene, Contact Dermatitis, epub 2018. The author, at Vilnius University, Lithuania, reports:

“A 28-year-old male patient presented to our clinic with a 6-week history of erythematous and itchy plaques on the inner side of the fifth finger of the right hand (Figure 1). This side of the finger was in contact with a wedding ring made from white gold and encrusted with meteorites, which had been bought from a specialized boutique. Moreover, dermatitis on the abdominal skin under a belt buckle was reported…. One [other] case of allergic contact dermatitis caused by a ring in a patient allergic to nickel has been published so far. In conclusion, it is interesting to remember that some allergens found on Earth can have dropped from outer space.”

An appreciation/analysis of the study appears in the Réalités Biomédicales blog.

 

A very British combination—Tea and Graphene—with an American price

Britain is famous for tea and also for graphene.

A recently published study combines the two. The study, called “Synergistic Effect Between Tea Polyphenols and Aluminum Flake on the Reduction of Graphene Oxide,” was written by a team of scientists in China. The publisher of the study—American Scientific Publishers—offers to sell you a copy of the study for US $105 plus tax.

(The first usable samples of graphene—a two-dimensional form of carbon—were obtained at the University of Manchester, by physicist Andre Geim and his student Konstantin Novoselov. Geim, an Ig Nobel Prize winner—together with Michael Berry of Bristol University‚ for using magnets to levitate a frog—and Novosolev were later awarded a Nobel Prize for that graphene research.)

“Soil themes” in pop music (new study)

Have you ever considered how “soil themes” have been represented in popular song? If so, a new paper in the journal Soil Science and Plant Nutrition (Volume 63, 2017 – Issue 5) may be of interest. See:

‘Songs for our soils. How soil themes have been represented in popular song‘    The authors cite songs such as :

• 1959 : Johnny Cash : Five feet high and rising : Songs of our Soils

• 1966 : Peter Seeger : Cement octopus : God Bless the Grass

• 1967 : The Beatles : Strawberry fields forever : Magical Mystery Tour

• 1975 : Johnny Cash : Look at Them Beans : Look at Them Beans

• 2015 : Neil Young : RMA : The Monsanto Years

And, in so doing :

“This paper observes that many of the greatest songwriters and interpreters on the international scene, from all musical genres, have dealt with soil, often from innovative and audacious perspectives. From the prosaic metaphor of the life cycle or as a medium for crops, the soil resource has also been cast as a means of pain, sacrifice, or even redemption. Sometimes seen as a secret world, a helpless creature, treated with a visionary or yet psychedelic approach, the soil has been represented in myriad ways.”

Note : The video above is :

• 1967 : The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band : Jollity Farm : Gorilla

(it features an agricultural theme, but is not cited in the paper).

Cats and Psychopaths and Vagina Music: Ig Nobel events in Denmark

The Ig Nobel EuroTour arrives in Denmark this week:

April 10, Tuesday, 7:00 pm—University of Aarhus, Denmark— and livestreamed to many other meeting places in Denmark. With:

Marc-Antoine Fardin , Ig Nobel Physics Prize winner (can a cat be both a solid and a liquid?)
Minna Lyons , Ig Nobel Psychology Prize winner (comparison of psychopathic traits in night owls versus early risers)
Álex García-Faura  and  Marisa López-Tejón , Ig Nobel Obstetrics Prize winners (effects of intra-vaginally played music on developing fetuses)


April 11,Wednesday, 4:00 pm—Technical University of Denmark—Building 303A/Aud. 42 Matematiktorvet, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby. With:

Marc-Antoine Fardin
Minna Lyons
Álex García-Faura and Marisa López-Tejón

Looking at Tyrells potato crisp packets (image ecology study)

 

Within the academic field of aesthetics, there aren’t all that many essays written   on   about potato crisp packets. There is, however, at least one.

Karin Wagner, who is professor and associate head of department for research in art history and visual studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, specialises in the areas of photography, new media and visual communication, and has a new paper in the Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, volume 10, 2018 – issue 1, entitled : ‘Nostalgic photographs in the contemporary image ecology: the example of Tyrrells crisp packaging’

“The purpose is to explore the ontological transformations of photographs in the contemporary image ecology, blurring the categories ‘analogue’ and ‘digital;. What new meanings and materiality can old photographs acquire when for instance put on packages that are used, thrown away, recycled and sometimes upcycled?”

As a case study, the professor focused specifically on the packaging of crisps from UK-based Tyrells Potato Crisps Ltd., drawing comparison(s) between the real-world thowaway crisp packets and the virtual world, where ‘disposable’ imagery abounds.

“The crisp package is an ephemeral object that is meant to be thrown away. When the bag is opened, the photograph is likely to be destroyed — the bag can be seen as a snapchat photo, that is made to last for a short moment and then disappear. However, there are millions of new pristine samples in the shops, and although most of them are destined to be discarded, some will survive. It is similar to posting pictures on the Internet, once there they are likely to live on.”

BONUS: A 1969 Monty Python sketch, cited in the paper, (Season 1, Episode 3) can be viewed here – starting at around 19:00

Note: As far as can be ascertained, ‘ Tyrells ’ does not feature an apostrophe.