Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 9

Landing Strategies of Cats and for Legged Space Robots

Leaping and falling generally lead to landing, which can be difficult to do. This study considers the problem as it involves cats and legged space robots: “Analysis of Cushioned Landing Strategies of Cats Based on Posture Estimation,” Li Zhang, Liangliang Han, Haohang Liu, Rui Shi, Meiyang Zhang, Weijun Wang, Xuyan Hou, Biomimetic, vol. 13, no. […]

Preview of the Ig Nobel Show at EPFL in Lausanne

EPFl in Lausanne published a preview of Ig Nobel show they will host on March 31, 2025. The show is part of the 2025 Ig Nobel EuroTour. This will be the sixth time EPFL has hosted an Ig Nobel show.

Very, Very, Very, and so on, in mini-AIR

Three studies by a researcher named Very are spotlighted in the January 2025 issue of mini-AIR, our free monthly little e-newsletter of stuff that’s too tiny to fit into the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. A bunch of other stuff is in there, too. If you’d like each new issue of mini-AIR to be emailed to you, add yourself […]

“Marc’s Improbable Stuff”

I (Marc) have begun a Substack to publish a mix of (1) new stuff and (2) other stuff that’s new to most people. It’s called “Marc’s Improbable Stuff“. Subscribe at: https://improbablestuff.substack.com/ What You Will Find There Many of the things there will be related to the kind of stuff that’s in the magazine (Annals of […]

Using a Shotgun and Minecraft to estimate mathematical constants

Ingenuity came to play in these two studies that, each of them, tried unusual ways to estimate the value of particular mathematical constants. (Note that, if you consider only these two studies, you might leapingly assume that this kind of thing is attempted once every decade.) Using a Shotgun “A Ballistic Monte Carlo Approximation of […]

“Sorry, No Secret to Life Is Going to Make You Live to 110”

Ig Nobel Prize winner Saul Justin Newman has an essay in today’s New York Times about the research that won him the 2024 Ig Nobel Prize for demography. (The Times did not mention that the research won a prize. The Times did write an extensive report about it, shortly after that prize was awarded.) Newman’s […]

Fraudster Companies Pretend to Pretend Be Officially “Improbable”

CHAPTER 1: The Beginning On this, the first day of the USA’s Festival of Looting and Destruction, we at Improbable Research received an email message from a fraudster in China. A few days ago we were warned by an another fraudster in China that the first fraudster was trying to register domain names that would […]

Fraudster Company in China Pretends to Be Officially “Improbable”

On this, the first day of the Festival of Looting and Destruction, we at Improbable Research received an email message from a fraudster in China. A few days ago we were warned by an internet domain registrar in Shanghai that this fraudster was trying to register domain names that would make them appear to be […]

Improbable Dramatic Readings at Arisia Friday night

We will be doing an Improbable Dramatic Readings session this Friday night, January 17, 2025, at Arisia, the scifi con in Boston, beginning at 8:00 pm. WHERE: Arisia, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, in the Hyatt Regency Boston/Cambridge Hotel. WHAT: Improbable Dramatic Readings (read aloud by probably dramatic readers) of very brief extracts from improbably exciting genuine […]

How Are You Using Frozen Dog Sperm?

In what ways, for what purposes, are people using frozen dog sperm? The answer, or parts of it, are revealed in this study: “Rising trends in the use of frozen dog sperm: a retrospective study in Belgium and the Netherlands,” Guillaume Domain, Maarten Kappen, Amber Van Mil, Ilse De Beijer, Matthieu Van Puyvelde, Robby Van […]