Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 36

The Descent of Cookbooks

“The Nonequilibrium Nature of Culinary Evolution,” by Osame Kinouchi, Rosa W. Diez-Garcia, Adriano J. Holanda, Pedro Zambianchi, and Antonio C. Roque, is one of the research studies featured in the article “Food Formulas and Recipes“, in the special Formulas & Recipes issue of the magazine (Annals of Improbable Research).

Read the article online. And if you like, subscribe to the magazine, and maybe even snag yourself some back issues.

Some history of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, and all that

Eugenie Scott and I had a fun talk, for an online meeting of the Bay Area Skeptics, about the Ig Nobel Prizes. This happened on June 8, 2023.  Here’s video:

 

Electric meringue recipe, public relations equation, and two sleepy superpowers

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

Power meringue — Researchers in South Korea and the US have cooked up a recipe for meringue that you can then use to make electrical batteries….Public relations equation — “It will cost up to $21.5 billion to clean up California’s oil sites. The industry won’t make enough money to pay for it”, reads the headline of a report by news site ProPublica. Such revelations – of things costing much more than the public had been told – can bring a knowing smile to anyone who loves equations. Here’s why. It is a reminder, first, that in the field of economics (like everywhere else), what you choose to leave out of your equations matters and, second, that it might be a long time before people realise what is missing….Falling off to sleep — Stephen Ferguson contributes a dangerously relaxing addition to Feedback’s nascent catalogue of trivial superpowers. He says: “I can fall asleep in any moving vehicle. While serving in the Falklands I found I could sleep in a Chinook helicopter which caused me to miss where I was supposed to get off, which in turn caused the pilot to have to turn around and take me back….Nap time — Gillian Metheringham reports another sleep-related trivial superpower. She says: “I am able to nap whenever I feel a wave of sleepiness overcoming me and then wake up after a defined number of minutes, feeling fully rested and ready to continue the day. The only requirement is for me to say the number of minutes (e.g. 10 minutes) aloud to myself first and look at a clock to orient myself. …

Headline about an extinct skink

This week’s pleasingly-worded science headline: “Ancient extinct skink was orders of magnitude bigger than any skink alive today“. It appears over a June 14, 2023 report by Phys.org about research done in Australia.

The invisible-gorilla guys shine a spotlight on con men’s tricks

The Ig Nobel Prize-winning “invisible gorilla” guys have a new book coming out. The book is about con men — about how (1) everyone can get conned, and (2) anyone can learn to not get conned so often.

Dan Simons and Chris Chabris‘s new book is called Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It. We expect it will be useful, valuable, insightful, and fun to read. Here’s a video teaser:

 

Background: About that Gorilla

The 2004 Ig Nobel Psychology Prize was awarded to Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, for demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it’s all too easy to overlook anything else — even a woman in a gorilla suit.

They documented that research in the study “Gorillas in Our Midst,” vol. 28, Perception, 1999, pages 1059-74. This Emmy-award winning video tells about it:

Review of Love Your Gusset

If you have not yet read a review of Love Your Gusset, here is an opportunity to try to read one:

“Review of Love Your Gusset: Making Friends with Your Pelvic Floor,” Walter Pierre Bouman, Sexual and Relationship Therapy, vol. 23, no. 2, 2008, pp.173-174.

 

Mechanical Engineers’ [ASME] Quiz About the Ig Nobel Prizes

ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is running a quiz about the Ig Nobel Prizes. Here is their introduction:

Quiz: The Ig Nobel Prize and Odd Research

Not all research is created equal. Try this quiz on the Ig Nobel Prize that calls out what appears to be silly.

The Nobel Prize may be the world’s most prestigious award, given annually to those who have “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind,” according to the Nobel Foundation, which administers the awards. There are actually five Nobel prizes, given in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. An award for economics was added in 1968. Not as well known, and not as prestigious, is the Ig Nobel Prize, a satiric competition awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate 10 unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. They are meant to reward research that makes people laugh, and then makes them think. See what you know about the Ig Nobel Prize….

 

The final recalibration of Ig Nobel Prize winner Pat Robertson

Ig Nobel Prize winner Pat Robertson — who predicted that the world would end in 1982 — died today (June 8, 2023), according to numerous news reports.

The 2011 Ig Nobel Mathematics Prize was awarded to: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

Window Pains, Hamburger & Fries, Stone on Stone, 2 New Superpowers

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

Window Pains — When you donate your future former self “to science”, your generosity might open a door (and, as you will see, close a window) to adventure. A 2012 paper titled “Finger injuries caused by power-operated windows of motor vehicles: An experimental cadaver study” used the index, middle, ring and little fingers of 10 cadaver hands to “simulate real events in which a finger is jammed between the glass and seal entry of the window of a current motor vehicle”….Hamburger and Fries — Rob Eason went on an intellectual snack run through the library, where he snagged two nominative determinism treats. “Inheritance of mixed cryoglobulinemia”, a paper by Max Hamburger, Louis Fries and colleagues, was published in 1981 in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Eason says: “Cryoglobulins are abnormal proteins in the blood. Maybe their presence is due to the contributions from the Hamburger and Fries involved?” …Stone on Stone — Further nominative determinism. Eric Bignell sends word that: “The Stone Masons Livery Company in London has just published a book about its history. The book is written by Ian Stone.”Annikan Flycatcher — … Laura Connell says: “Your listings of trivial superpowers put me in mind of a student I knew when I was teaching. Annika, while chatting, was able to casually reach up and pick flies off her face. They never got away, or even tried. And she never rushed or tried the sneaky stealth approach. Teachers and students alike were gobsmacked, but she often was not even aware that she had done it, so habitual was it. And she never understood our amazement.” …Storied Superpower — Mark Hessler says that he has a trivial superpower: “I like telling stories and I think my most notable ability may be the special instinct I have about who’s already heard which story. When I have an impulse to speak with someone or in a group it’s nearly always accompanied by a corresponding sense of who present may have heard it before. It’s become a point of pride for me…

An Old History of No Soap

The expression “no soap” has a history. The portion of that history that’s prior to 1958 appears in this paper: “No Soap,” Archer Taylor, Western Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 3, July 1957, pp. 198-200.