Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 31

A new era for epiglottis calculation

If you prefer not to do your own epiglottis calculations (maybe you fear you lack the mathematical chops to do that well?), this new study may bring cheer:

“Development of a Deep Learning-Based Epiglottis Obstruction Ratio Calculation System,” by  Hsing-Hao Su and Chuan-Pin Lu, Sensors, 2023.
4.

Maybe you are unsure what and where your epiglottis is, and what it generally does. The Cleveland Clinic’s explanation is a fine introduction:

How does my epiglottis work?
If you’re like most people, you swallow between 500 and 700 times a day, and your epiglottis goes into action with every swallow. When you swallow, the free end of your epiglottis flips backward to cover the opening of your larynx. When food or fluid gets close, the free end of your epiglottis flips up and pushes food or liquid away from your larynx toward your esophagus.

Black Hole Lane, Rauks (Rocks), Worm on the Tree of Life

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

Mapping black holes — Richard Notley has been wondering down a dark path… and found enlightenment in remarks made by mathematician Roger Penrose (New Scientist, 19 November 2022) about the structure of the universe. He writes: “Roger may have solved a problem I have. A continuation of Roman Road, Hereford, on which I live, goes into Black Hole Lane [pictured below]. I have ridden down this lane several times both ways wondering whether I will hit the event horizon….Rauks (rocks) — Tom Gill is one of many scientists who always want to know more about the things they love. “I’ve been a geology nerd for fifty-plus years,” he writes to Feedback. “I was today years old when I learned that a type of rock exists which is officially named… rauks.” Gill’s epiphany – that rauks are rocks – came from the city of Wroclaw in Poland….Worm’s view of the tree — Worm, Boris Worm (spoken aloud that way, the name has much the same musical ring as “Bond, James Bond”), has long been a biology professor at Dalhousie University in Canada. Worm sees humans as predators. You can read his explanation of that in the study “Humanity’s diverse predatory niche and its ecological consequences“, which Worm and 11 co-authors published in the journal Communications Biology….

Nasal Hair Follicles in Several Mammals

Enjoy, if you will, Masanori Maeda’s masterful “Über den Nasenhaarbalg bei einigen Säugetieren” [Nasal Hair Follicles in Several Mammals].

It was published in Okajimas Folia Anatomica Japonica, vol. 25, nos. 5-6, 1954, pp. 235-238.

Here’s a bit of detail:

A Tech-Eyed Wander Through Ig Nobel History

Jonathan Strickland takes a detailed half-hour journey through Ig Nobel history, focusing mostly on some of the early technology-related prize-winners, in the Tech Stuff podcast. Strickland vows to do another podcast about some of the later winners.

A list of all the Ig Nobel Prize winners, from 1991 through the present, would lead you to details about all of them. It is always interesting to compare one’s appraisal of any particular winner with the appraisals of other people.

The image you see here is from the documentary film Project Grizzly, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, about the work of 1998 Ig Nobel Safety Engineering Prize winner Troy Hurtubise. Hurtubise won his prize for for developing, and personally testing a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears.. Here is the entire film:

Sept 29: Improbable Dramatic Readings at the Cambridge Science Festival

On Friday, September 29, we will be doing TWO (2) shows of Improbable Dramatic Readings as part of the Cambridge Science Festival, organized by the MIT Museum.

What

Luminaries (of various wattage) will each do brief dramatic readings from seemingly absurd, genuine research studies and patents. Some of those studies and patents have won Ig Nobel Prizes. All of them make people laugh, then think.

The image you see here (with text that begins “The person reading a paper to you…”) explains how this works.

Two Shows, with Different Performers and Material

There will be TWO (2) shows. Both will happen at the MIT Welcome Center, 292 Main Street, Building E38 (next to the Kendall MBTA station and the new MIT Museum), Cambridge MA, USA. Robin Abrahams will emcee both shows. Minordomos Roksi Freeman, Susan Kany, and Marc Abrahams will wrangle.

TICKETS (separate admission for each show) are free, available from the Cambridge Science Festival:

TICKETS for the 5 pm showTICKETS for the 7 pm show

5 PM SHOW  — PERFORMERS: Karen Hopkin / Chris Hopkin / Jenn Bulger James / Gary Dryfoos / Louise Sacco / Dany Adams / Joe Madsen / Martha Eddison / Eric Jung / Bryan Man / Abhi Natarajan / and maybe others

7 PM SHOW — PERFORMERS: Debbie Douglas / Deanna Montgomery / Fatima Husain / Christina Symons /Cadence Payne / Deborah Blum / Sara Dion / and maybe others

Meanwhile, in Italy…

That day, September 29, if you happen to be in Italy rather than Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, come to one of the Ig Nobel events in Perugia, Cagliari, Catania, L’Aquila, Macerata, and Pavia. They all are part of Sharper — European Researchers’ Night)! Ig Nobel Prize winners  Alessio Emanuele Biondo, Alessandro Pluchino, and Andrea Rapisarda will be present at the Catania event. Ig Nobel Prize winner Silvano Gallus will be present at the Pavia event. Marc Abrahams will Zoom in at the Perugia event.

Double Standards Days / Non-AI Sheep-counting / Science vs. Judiciary Laws

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

Double standards— World Standards Day 2023 will arrive soon, two days after it arrives. As Feedback noted last year (17 September 2022), having double Standards Days is standard behaviour. This year, most of the world will officially celebrate World Standards Day on 14 October. The date is specified by a consortium of three organisations: the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The United States of America (which these days are less united than they used to be – except in celebrating World Standards Day) officially celebrates World Standards Day on 12 October….Don’t count on AI — Anna Butcher – whose name looks like, but may not be, an example of nominative determinism – tells Feedback that attempts to use artificial intelligence to count sheep (Feedback, 29 July) are based on ignorance. Anna explains: “We farmers can only shake our heads at what is to us a ludicrous idea of counting sheep with AI. Counting sheep accurately is quite a skill, a skill that many Australian livestock producers and stock agents have….Laws of all kinds — … Feedback savours one particular difference between scientific laws and judicial laws: what happens when a law gets broken. When a behaviour – any behaviour at all – undeniably conflicts with a scientific law, scientists conclude that that law is wrong and needs correction. But when a behaviour undeniably conflicts with a judicial law, the judicial system concludes that that behaviour was wrong and needs correction. Public discussions, especially in courtrooms and political arenas, don’t always make that distinction.Inner (ear) harmony — … “After reading about Rob Holmes’ trivial superpower of flexing his middle ear muscle (stapedius, the smallest muscle in the human body) [Feedback, 15 July], I realised that I have the same superpower. Further, by voluntary contractions, I can play a bass line in a tune….”

Science celebrity news: Glassware Prohibitor’s Progeny?

The Nigerian news site ABTC raises a curious question about 2024 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize winner Bob Glasgow:

Bob Glasgow children: Does Bob Glasgow have kids?
By Seth Frimpong

…Glasgow, born on February 28, 1942, in Stephenville, Texas, was a trained lawyer who ventured into politics, eventually becoming a member of the Senate of Texas. His dedication to public service led to numerous accomplishments, including serving as President Pro Tem of the Senate and even stepping into the role of Governor of Texas on several occasions.

One of the more unconventional aspects of Glasgow’s career was his involvement with the field of chemistry. He received the 1994 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for sponsoring a groundbreaking 1989 drug law, making it illegal to purchase laboratory glassware without a permit. This unique achievement added a distinctive layer to his multifaceted career….

The image shown here is from ABTC’s Glasgow report.

Knowlton and Knowlton

Ig Nobel Prize winner Jim Knowlton, who won his prize in 1992 for creating the educational poster “Penises of the Animal Kingdom”, figures in a report today by John Kelly in the Washington Post:

A real double take: Readers share their cases of mistaken identity

… In the early 1990s, Brian Knowlton’s father, James Knowlton, was a professor in the education department at Indiana University Bloomington.
“Knowlton is not a terribly common surname, but at some point, unbeknownst to us, another James Knowlton moved to Bloomington,” wrote Brian, who lives in Silver Spring, Md. “This younger James Knowlton, it turned out, had a PhD in particle physics, but came up with the rather improbable idea of producing a poster titled ‘Penises of the Animal Kingdom.’”

This was a poster of … well, the title pretty much sums it up. The poster was later awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in art, a parody of the Nobel Prize.

Brian’s family was quite unaware of this parallel-universe James Knowlton until one day his mother answered the phone and heard the caller say he wanted to order a copy of “Penises of the Animal Kingdom.”
Wrote Brian: “A very long silence ensued on her end. It took a while to sort out — I’m sure there was a fairly interesting behind-closed-door conversation between my parents — but anyway, for a while, ‘Sorry, wrong number’ was heard a bit more often in our place.”

NOTE: The image shown here is a photograph of a framed copy of the poster on display in a museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Ig Nobels in my column this week in New Scientist

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine is about the new Ig Nobel Prize winners.

The Feedback column was created and edited by John Hoyland. I first knew Feedback (and John’s work) as a subscriber to New Scientist. Every year the column would have an especially fun and interesting writeup of the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. I had created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in 1991. It was a special treat to me to see how John and his colleagues, in Feedback, would write them up. John and I became friends and frequent collaborators.

It is now many years since John Hoyland died. Last year I became the person who creates the Feedback column every week . The week of the year when I get to write about the new Ig Nobel Prize winners has become a special pleasure.

This week’s column comes with the headline “Ig Nobel prizes 2023: Rock licking and other unlikely winners” and the subheadline “From eating fossils to reanimating dead spiders for use as mechanical gripping tools, this year’s Ig Nobel prizes, for science that ‘makes people laugh, then think’, are unveiled“. I hope you enjoy it.

Some Ig Nobel acceptance speeches: “The director’s cut”

Several of the 2023 Ig Nobel Prize winners made special extra versions of their acceptance speeches — slightly different from the versions that were part of the 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony webcast. Here are those special versions:

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE acceptance speech:

PHYSICS PRIZE acceptance speech:

EDUCATION PRIZE acceptance speech:

LITERATURE PRIZE acceptance speech: