Humor

Can people tell how appetizingly fresh a cabbage is, just by looking at photos of the leaves? In 2010, a team of investigators from four prestigious Japanese research institutes (along with  The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) set up a series of experiments to find out. Using a set of 32hr. time-lapse of photos of cabbage leaves (see picture below) they asked experimental participants to rate the featured cabbages according to how fresh (or not-so-fresh) they looked. When the results had been analysed, a clearcut pattern emerged from the data . . . “…participants could…

“Body odor sampling is an essential tool in human chemical ecology research.” - explain the authors of a recent research project undertaken jointly by the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, and the Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioural Ecology Research Group at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK. But it’s not always convenient, or even practical, to take on-the-spot axilliary (armpit) odor samples for use in human cognition experiments. Therefore, the investigators decided to find out if it might be…

“This study outlines a corpus comparison of British and New Zealander speakers’ use of the phrases ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I dunno’. ” Dr. Lynn Grant, who is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Languages and Social Sciences at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand ('The University for Changing the World') has recently completed a study which examined the linguistic properties of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I dunno’. Finding that the phrases often find use as 'hedges', markers of uncertainty, and as politeness devices. It was also determined that British speakers use the phrase with…

“In this paper, we consider musical cell-phone ringtones as virtual, communicative and cultural performances.”   - say the authors of a paper entitled ‘The Musical Madeleine: Communication, Performance, and Identity in Musical Ringtones’ - which is published in the journal Popular Music and Society, Volume 33, Issue 1 February 2010.Investigators Imar de Vries and Isabella van Elferenat at the Department of New Media&Digital Culture of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, point out that that ringtones are “interpreted by variegated and dynamic audiences” and thus “…they establish…

It may have been predictable, but shortly after the introduction of automated fingerprint recognition systems came the invention of fake fingers. As this research paper from May 2009 explains, fake fingers made from gelatine soon appeared, quickly followed by Play-Doh™. The authors review the “…state-of-the-art of fake finger materials and disclose the power of a, let’s say, brand new material in this field: Glycerin.“ Security analysts and biometric recognition-system manufactures have been investigating various methods to thwart the fakers using various techniques coming under the umbrella…

“There exists no gold standard for the measurement of snoring.” But a joint research team from the Human Sleep Research Laboratory at the Stanford Research Institute in the US and Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany has recently made progress. They devised a set of experiments towards quantifying snoring annoyance, investigating the question – “Is the annoyance of snoring a reliable tool for the measurement of snoring or does it depend more on the sensitivity of the listener?” To find out, 550 representative snoring sequences which had been recorded during polysomnography (PSG)…

There have been several implementations of two wheeled balancing robots [example]. And several which can read sheet music via a camera [example]. Others can ‘sing’ [example] – but the number of two-wheeled balancing robots that can autonomously read music and sing songs is low – possibly numbering just one.A research team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Taipei, Taiwan, (a.k.a. Taiwan Tech) have recently created one – which not only performs all the aforementioned activities – but can do so simultaneously.The robot…

Might a person’s preferences for a mate vary according to whether they feel hungry or not?  Some believe so, prompting professor Terry F. Pettijohn II from the Coastal Carolina University (along with colleagues from Miami University and West Virginia University) to investigate. For, according to the Environmental Security Hypothesis (ESH) individuals’ interpersonal preferences may partially depend on how secure or insecure they feel regarding their surroundings at any given time.Over the course of two weeks, the investigators asked 328 students at a university dinning hall (who had…

The story begins with my own submitting a communication to over there. In a really short time I have obtained a response !!! O-h-o-o-o !!! Now they’re working with a speed !!! My God !!! Let’s read their answer together: Its header: BBRC-12-1466: Final Decision … Its text: Ms. No.: BBRC-12-1466 Title: Entropy-Enthalpy Compensation as a Fundamental Concept and Analysis Tool for Systematical Experimental Data Corresponding Author: Dr. Evgeni B. Starikov Authors: Bengt Nordén, Prof. Dr. Dear Dr. Starikov, After a careful review of your manuscript, I am afraid that we are not able to accept it…

Our attentiveness and our concentration are pilfered from us by the proceedings [which] take place around us in the world in recent times. According to research from Sipna’s College of Engineering&Technology, Amravati University, Maharashtra, India, this pilfering might be reduced, if not entirely eliminated, by regularly chanting ‘OM’.Professors Ajay Anil Gurjar and Siddharth A. Ladhake point out that : “Meditation is essential for all human beings. In the same way, for pschychological [sic] stress, Speech signal is uttered to be a considerable indicator. In the direction of mediating…