Alan Burdick's Blog, page 2
June 7, 2018
The Belt That Listens to Your Bowels
Alan Burdick on the Nobel Prize-winning gastroenterologist Barry Marshall, who thinks he���s found a way to diagnose irritable-bowel syndrome with technology that analyzes the sounds of the stomach.
June 2, 2018
Why Stick Insects Might Be Into Birds Eating Their Kids
Alan Burdick on a new study positing that stick insects manage to persist from generation to generation because their eggs can survive passage through birds��� digestive systems.
June 1, 2018
The World Cup for Forgotten Nations
Alan Burdick writes about CONIFA, organized by the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, which provides an alternative World Cup for football teams that aren���t represented by FIFA.
May 30, 2018
Looking for Life on a Flat Earth
Alan Burdick writes about a growing community of people who reject the notion that the Earth is round.
May 25, 2018
The Chewing-Gum Workout Plan
Alan Burdick discusses the science of how chewing gum affects human physiology.
May 15, 2018
Why Nouns Slow Us Down, and Why Linguistics Might Be in a Bubble
Alan Burdick writes about a new study in linguistics that found that speakers of different languages pause longer before nouns than they do other words.
May 11, 2018
At Last, Scientific Proof That Eurovision Makes People Happier
Alan Burdick discusses a recent study in the journal BMC Public Health, which finds that ���even an abysmal performance��� in the annual Eurovision Song Contest makes residents of the countries that participated more satisfied with their lives.
May 5, 2018
Elegy for the World���s Oldest Spider
Alan Burdick remembers No. 16, an Australian trapdoor spider that lived to the age of forty-three, and discusses the effect that she had on the naturalist Barbara York Main, whose work has been compared with that of Rachel Carson.
April 27, 2018
A Storm Chaser���s Unforgiving View of the Sky
Alan Burdick writes about Camille Seaman's photographs of clouds, which can appear as portraits of humanity itself.
April 25, 2018
Our Early Ancestors Stalked Terrifying, Eight-Foot-Tall Sloths
Alan Burdick discusses the results of a new study in the journal Science Advances, which suggests that early human ancestors, between ten thousand and fifteen thousand years ago, hunted giant ground sloths and may have contributed to their extinction.
