Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 20

Phlegm Thrower

The description of this phlegm thrower suffers a bit from machine-translation woes:

“Suction Device and Usable Ejection for Care,” French patent application FR2889070A1, Michel Brun, filed July 27, 2005.

The application says, sort of: “This apparatus comprises a hollow tubular body, a piston 3 slidably mounted and sealed in the body 2, and means 13 for actuating the piston between two extreme positions, respectively, front and postérieure. Selon the invention, the means 13 actuating are lateral to the piston 3 and connected to it by a bracket 12 passing through a longitudinal slot 9 of the body 3, said light being positioned in the body 2 so that when the piston 3 is in the rear end position , its sealing means 15 with the body remains actifs. L’invention also includes the application of this device to an extractor of nasal mucus.”

HAVE PDF.

https://patents.google.com/patent/FR2889070B1/fr

Beach poo, Mussel-bound death, Mustache negation and measuring

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Pet contributions — … Brad D. Lee of the University of Kentucky will present his views on the topic “Companion canine nutrient contributions to peri-urban environments“ …Mussel-bound death — … “Dramatic is the fate of a Danish black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) that stepped on a freshwater mussel in 1952,” he writes. “The mussel closed its valves and would not let go. The (no longer living) evidence – the gull itself with the mussel still attached to its right leg – was on display in an old photo I found deep in the internet.” …Mustache negation — … A curious phrasing appears in the titles of several studies published recently in research journals in Iran. What follows are are three examples. “Analysis of the economic diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in international relations with an emphasis on the rule of negation of the mustache“ …Mustache measuring — … He pointed out that, like mustache-hair growth, “earthquakes are simply one of a host of phenomena for which logarithmic plots of number versus size are approximately straight”.

What’s New in Sewing

What’s new in sewing? Lots. Here are two newly-published gobs of research info.

Parameters of the Bobbin

“Influence of the parameters of the bobbin on the friction between the unwinding thread and the plastic sticks of the rubber bushing in the sewing machine,” M.A. Mansurova; Z.S. Vafaeva; J.B. Matyaqubova, Proceedings of the III International Conference on Advances in Science, Engineering, and Digital Education: ASEDU-III 2022, 8–10 December 2022 Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation, AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 2969, 060019, 2024.

The authors report:
“The article provides a structural diagram and the principle of operation of a composite bobbin with an elastic sleeve and plastic sticks. An analytical method is given for determining the moment of friction between the unwinding thread and the plastic sticks of the rubber bushing in the sewing machine, based on the analysis of the constructed graphical dependencies, the main parameters of the recommended bobbin design in the sewing machine.”

impact of the tension force of needle thread

“Analysis of impact of the tension force of needle thread on the shift of the axis of cushioning bush of the composite roller of thread guide in sewing machine,” G. Tursunova and A. Djuraev, Proceedings of the III International Conference on Advances in Science, Engineering, and Digital Education: ASEDU-III 2022, 8–10 December 2022 Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation, AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 2969, no. 1, 2024.

The authors report: “The article covers the structural features of thread guides of technological machines. The schematic diagram of recommended construction of thread guide with composite roller with cushioning rubber bush is given. The results of theoretical research on determination of shift of the axis of cushioning bush of the composite roller of thread guide in a sewing machine are given. Parameters of the thread guide are substantiated.”

Love ostriches, Coffee aromatherapy, Dental student teeth, Nudist circumcision, Pharma drama

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Love ostriches — The known risks – corporate, financial, personal, sexual – of starting an ostrich farm are perhaps not so well known in New England as in old England….Coffee aromatherapy — Praewpat Pachimsawat, Manita Tammayan, Thi Kim Anh Do and Nattinee Jantaratnotai devised a fairly simple way to deliver aroma to dental students. Opting not to infuse an entire room with a general miasma, they sought to achieve “personal coffee aroma distribution”. Personal coffee aroma distribution, desirable though it is, wasn’t the ultimate purpose….Dental stress — Another reason dental students can feel stress becomes evident when one sees the title of the study “Influence of dental students’ dietary habits on tooth color” by Ayse Tugba Erturk Avunduk, Hande Filiz and Esra Cengiz Yanardağ….Circumcision for nudists— Feedback congratulates the anonymous author of a news release from Brandon University in Canada for persuading their editor to run the item that bears this all-caps headline: “BU PROF RECOGNIZED FOR OUTSTANDING RESEARCH ON ANTI-CIRCUMCISION DEBATES”. The first sentence may have been irresistible once it entered the writer’s mind….Pharma drama — Feedback savours the panoply of emotions delivered to television viewers by an ad campaign for a drug that has the non-evocative name Bimzelx….

A compound called schreckstoff (“Scary Stuff”)

“…a compound called schreckstoff. Many fish species excrete schreckstoff when they are injured. This alerts the rest of the school that danger is near. In a sense, fishes can actually smell fear. Schreckstoff was first documented in 1938 by Austrian ethologist Dr. Karl von Frisch [pictured here]. Because he didn’t know the chemical makeup of the compound, he simply called it schreckstoff—German for ‘scary stuff’.”

—So wrote Brandon Peoples, in The Fisheries blog.

May mini-AIR: onion and or in milk

The May 2024 issue of mini-AIR (the monthly teeny tiny supplement to the magazine Annals of Improbable Research) has just gone out. You can add yourself to the email distribution list, if you like, or read it online.

“Can this spoon help Japanese people eat less salt?”

The technology honored with the 2023 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize is now available in a consumer item: an electrified spoon. This Reuters video report tells about it, with the headline “Can this spoon help Japanese people eat less salt?”:

That Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to Homei Miyashita [show in the photo above] and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food.

They documented their research, in the study “Augmented Gustation Using Electricity,” Hiromi Nakamura and Homei Miyashita, Proceedings of the 2nd Augmented Human International Conference, March 2011, article 34.  doi.org/10.1145/1959826.1959860

Distinguishing fanged frogs, Cats on cannabis, Sea stickiness,

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Distinguished frogs — It turns out, say Chatmongkon Suwannapoom and Maslin Osathanunkul, that a good way to distinguish one kind of fanged frog from another is to do melting analysis. Their report, “Distinguishing fanged frogs (Limnonectes) species (Amphibia: Anura: Dicroglossidae), from Thailand using high resolution melting analysis“, explains how they achieved the “rapid and accurate identification of six species of Limnonectes of the L. kuhlii complex”….Cats on cannabis — The full effects of cannabis – like, come to think of it, the full effects of anything – on humans still hold some mysteries. So it is with cannabis and cats. Chloe Lyons and her colleagues at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, have made some progress about the cats….Stickiness — At sea, there is spice. Feedback still delights in how oceanographers decided that some ocean water can be called “spicy” and other ocean water “minty” (8 October 2022). Here’s further delight: in the air, there is “stickiness”. Reader Earle Spamer brings news of the latter. “Here’s a paper that brandishes a ‘new’ variable in climate studies: stickiness,” he writes. “An awful lot of mathematics to explain what my grandmother knew just by sitting on the front porch.” …Ketchup cardio claim — Feedback’s recent insights on ketchup (16 March) set at least one reader’s heart racing….

Dead Duck Day 2024, in public and in private (June 5th)

June 5th is Dead Duck Day, commemorating a 1995 incident that took place outside the Rotterdam Museum of Natural History (“A Dead Serious Museum“) that has inspired people around the world to think about birds, safety, and just how hard they should be laughing about (or with) nature. Dead Duck Day is observed around the world, with occasional additions and subtractions – if you want to mark the day in Rotterdam, Seattle, or where you are, read on.

Why THAT Duck: On June 5th, 1995 a mallard duck collided with a large glass window of Het Natuurhistoisch Museum in Rotterdam. That duck died instantly, a second duck approached, and the scientist on the scene (a bird researcher, and the curator of the Museum) documented what happened next in his research paper, “The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)“.

Rotterdam: Rotterdam will not hold a Dead Duck Day public celebration this year, as founder Kees Moeliker is on a leave of absence. You can still think on the event, what it means, what it meant for the 2 birds involved, for the scientist who observed it, and what it says about the natural world. Perhaps you’ll enjoy a tasty duck dinner while you consider these things.

Seattle: On Wednesday June 5th, 2024, Ig Nobel ceremony co-producer David Kessler will hold an informal Dead Duck Day celebration in Seattle. David has been doing this privately for several years now with a few friends, but this year he is opening the invitation to interested strangers as well – those interested in ducks, in Improbable Research, and entertaining science. He will post a time and location at this link. Attendees will hear excerpts from the research paper that began it all, hear a brief account of how the Ig Nobels heard about it, and how that changed the life of its author. David will then walk to a nearby restaurant for a tasty duck dinner with as many attendees as the restaurant can handle (attendees will share the cost of the dinner).

Where You Are: Here are some resources to help you commemorate the day in your own town:

Read from the research paper that started it allThink about the dangers that glass buildings represent to birds, and what can be done about it (an example, and another example)Enjoy some duck at a restaurant or at home (See Julia Child blow a duck call!)Raise a toast to Kees Moeliker, who wrote that research paper (Watch his TedTalk: “How A Dead Duck Changed My Life“)Think about how amazing and varied the natural world is (many good examples have won an Ig Nobel Prize)Dead Duck Day through the years (on improbable.com)NOTE: Traditionally, the event has been held at 5:55pm in Rotterdam. If 5:55pm doesn’t work for you then choose a different time

Bean-to-gas, Whistling survival, Fruit like flies, Dead corporate slogans

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Full of beans — On a gut level, what happens after a person becomes full of beans? Flatulence is what happens. But attempts at mitigation, explain Iowa State University researchers Donna Winham, Ashley Doina and Abigail Glick, can bring medical risk. They presented a paper at a recent conference in Denver, Colorado, called “Anti-flatulence supplements raise blood glucose after bean-based meals”. The particular supplement they tested, alpha-galactosidase, “reduces gas production by breaking complex carbohydrates into smaller, less fermentable, components [but it] can significantly increase glycemic response even in healthy adults”. Fewer farts, but at the expense of higher blood sugar levels….Survival of whistling — “Whistling,” a study called “The spiritual exploration of the whistling art in China” reminds us, “has the function of expressing personal emotions and lifting the mood”. Yet, explain authors Su Wang and Qingqing Xiao, the practice barely survived a Long, Dark Age of Whistling….Fruit, now like flies — Even before scientists discovered that a chemical called DNA transmits genetic information from generation to generation of all known living things, much of our understanding of inheritance came from fruit flies. Fruit got less attention. Now, things are catching up for fruit. Especially melons….Mourning dead slogans — A very few slogans stand as fading testimony to the good intent of the people who ran a particular organisation. Two of the most outstanding are IBM’s “THINK” and Google’s “Don’t be evil”. Those have both been retired. Presumably, each retirement marked the discovery of a nobler ideal. Something more profitable for humanity, or a portion thereof….