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How to Use the Bathroom on a 20-Hour Plus Solar Airplane Flight [Video]
In a bid to set the record for longest distance solar flight, Andre Borschberg will pilot the Solar Impulse airplane from Phoenix to Dallas. Total flying distance, barring route deviations due to weather or other factors, would be nearly 1,400 kilometers, or more than 200 kilometers farther than the previous longest flight set in 2012. [...]
Just the facts, man… The persistence of misconceptions
Derek Muller writes (and explains in more detail than I’m presenting here): “It is a common view that ‘if only someone could break this down and explain it clearly enough, more people would understand.’ However it is debatable whether clear, concise explanations really work…. People have existing ideas about real world phenomena before they encounter [...]
A shift in the MOOCmentum (part 5): Tressie McMillan Cottom on what MOOCs learned from for-profit colleges, and on challenging the framing of higher education as a market.
In my last post, I insisted that you read what Aaron Bady has to say about "The MOOC Moment and the End of Reform". Now, I'm going to insist that you engage with Tressie McMillan Cottom's compelling look at dueling narratives around higher education. One of them is the narrative of market forces, of individuals [...]
Study builds on Ig-Nobel-winning smelly-feet/malaria work
A new study — about malaria-causing mosquitos and stinky human feet — builds on the Ig Nobel Prize-winning experiments performed by Bart Knols and Ruurd de Jong. Knols and de Jong also showed that the mosquitoes are attracted to the smell of limburger cheese. [Knols described that research publicly again last week at the Ig [...]
Ideas and/or Babes They Picked Up Somewhere
The simple concept of evolution inspires some academics to pursue sexy ideas or other entities: “The dating mind: Evolutionary psychology and the emerging science of human courtship,” Nathan Oesch and Igor Miklousic, Evolutionary Psychology, vol.10, no. 5, 2011, pp. 899-909. The authors, at the University of Oxford and the Institute of social sciences Ivo [...]
Bell Labs Lead Researcher Discusses the Edge of the Internet [Video]
Apple introduces the latest “i”-gadget; Samsung takes the reins as the world’s leading smartphone provider; Blackberry mounts an all-or-nothing comeback. Just a typical day of tech headlines, right? Dig deeper, however, and you have to wonder what impact all of these new multimedia devices will have on the networks that give them life. Short answer: [...]
Astronaut Chris Hadfield Covers David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in Space [Video]
Chris Hadfield is an astronaut for the 21st century. The Canadian former fighter pilot and current commander of the International Space Station has shown a supreme mastery of social media. He has hosted an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit from space and has filmed several hugely popular YouTube videos demonstrating what it looks like [...]
Best space music videos: Hadfield/Bowie & Coleman/Anderson/Bach
Sizeable Complaints of Average Men [organ]
Some men like to complain. Some people think about how to respond to those complaints. Thus this study: “Position Paper: Management of Men Complaining of a Small Penis Despite an Actually Normal Size,” Hussein Ghanem [pictured here, below], Sidney Glina, Pierre Assalian, Jacques Buvat, Journal of Sexual Medicine, vol. 10, no. 1, January 2013, pp. [...]
"Project 1640" --New Space Technology Analyzes the Molecular Chemistry of Alien Planets
Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets -- planets that orbit stars beyond our sun -- and more than 2,700 other candidates. What are these exotic planets made of? Unfortunately, you cannot stack them in a jar like marble...
Ig Nobel at The University of Geneva (and webcast) tonight!
Life Could Have Evolved in Frigid Underwater Ice Gardens
New evidence indicates that chemical gardens which form beneath the Antarctic ice could be the origin of coldwater life. Brinicles, first captured forming on film by the BBC in 2011, are hollow tubes of ice that descend from Antarctic sea ice. They look a lot like icicles, but aren’t. As sea water freezes into ice, [...]
Improbable Research and Ig Nobel at TEDx CERN
I Can See Clearly Now, the Brain is Gone
It’s been a big press month for developments in transparency. First: the Antarctic icefish, whose native habitat is 3,200 feet deep in the waters off the coast of Antarctica. Earlier this month, Tokyo Sea Life Park debuted its display of the only captive icefish in the world, prompting a flurry of news pieces about the [...]
