Humor

When it comes to the names of lipsticks, anyone who has attempted to combine the ‘Presentation of Self’ theories of Erving Goffman and the semiotic modelling methods of Roland Gérard Barthes could well consult the work of professor Debra Merskin (of the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, US), who has categorised the names of no less than 1,722 lipsticks. “The names of lipsticks and how they penetrate women’s psyches as semiotic tools used in branding are the foci of the present study.” The professor’s study delineated 14 name-categories for the lipsticks…

If it's a “postmodern” 21st Century version of range sciences you're after, you can do no better than check out the website of the Jornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, New Mexico,US. "The Range Problem today calls not only for different experiments, but also for a reformulation of the broader framework of the discipline away from its modernist roots—productivist, reductionist, and mechanistic. The “postmodern” version of range science is the application of the scientific method at scales spatially and temporally relevant to management. We are trying to learn how to apply science to local…

Bruce Willis  heroically managed to save the world in the film 1998  Armageddon. He was able to deflect a huge Earth-bound asteroid with the expedient use of a well placed thermonuclear explosion. But some have questioned whether Willis’s feat would actually have been possible – without breaking the laws of physics . . . A research team from the University of Leicester, UK, investigated exactly this problem, calculating the energy which would be required to sufficiently alter the course of a 1000 km diameter meteor hurtling towards Earth at 10 km per second. Their verdict can be…

• Some people might feel happier if they get their hands on some more money.• Some people might feel happier if they use their hands to pray. Leading some to the question : is it feasible to equate the two? In other words, is it possible to put a price on prayer? Timothy T. Brown, Ph.D. (Assistant Adjunct Professor, Health Policy&Management Associate Director for Research, at the Berkeley Center for Health Technology) has entertained just such an idea. And has a paper in the journal Applied Economics, Volume 45, Issue 15, 2013. The article : A Monetary Valuation of Individual Religious…

“Photography has been around for many years. A problem associated with photography is oftentimes many people do not want to have their picture taken. For example, many celebrities do not want their picture taken or pictures of their companion’s [sic?] or relative’s [sic?] taken because they feel it is an invasion of their privacy.” What to do? A new solution is described in this April 2012 US patent – Inhibiting unwanted photography and video recording “ … as shown in FIG. 6, a celebrity 608 detects by visual observation that a picture is being taken by a paparazzo 602 having access to a…

• What is ‘Answering Machine Talk’? “Answering machine talk represents a form of mediated conversation in which messages are recorded to facilitate communication between participants.“ • What of the resources? “The talk which occurs in such messages draws upon the pool of available resources for telephone-based communication…” • What of the constraints? “[telephone-based communication] … modifies these resources as the result of constraints imposed by the communicative environment.” The quotes come from the paper : Discourse routines in answering machine communication in Australia (…

Those familiar with the Lord of the Rings will remember the Huorns.  According to the Lord of the Rings Wiki: Mostly the Huorns stood as dark trees in the deepest forests, gnarled and unmoving, yet watchful. When aroused in wrath they moved swiftly as if wrapped in shadows, falling on foes with deadly and merciless strength. . . . These were wild wood spirits who were bent on the destruction of all who threatened the forests. They were dangerous to all on two legs unless they were protected by Ents. So what is this, growing outside the Archaeology Department of the…

Many may have asked the questions ‘Why are boomerangs crescent-shaped?’ and ‘Why do boomerangs come back?’ – but few, however, are in a position to provide scientific explanations – aside, that is, from Prof. Yutaka Nishiyama of the Osaka University of Economics, Japan. In his article ‘Why Do Boomerangs Come Back?’ (Bulletin of Science, Technology&Society, Vol.22, No.1, 13-20，Feb 2002.) he answers both, with references to Bernoulli’s Principle, gyroscopes, inertial moments, the ‘right-hand-rule’, and more. Noting, for example : “A boomerang, along with making a left turn when thrown…

Everyone (who can count) will instantly recognise the numbers 1 2&3 in the picture below:Or will they? Well, no they won’t. All is explained in an article for Osaka Keidai Ronshu, Vol. 60 number 5, where Professor Yutaka Nishiyama (Osaka University of Economics, Japan) lists many crucial variations in finger-counting across the world. These hands, for example, also show the numbers 1, 2 &3 – as will be readily appreciated by those from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The professor has discovered (via the internet) that there are at least 27 types of finger-counting regimes across…

Bearing in mind that the word ‘ovoid’ means ‘egg-shaped’, the question : ‘Why are eggs ovoid?’ has much in common with questions like or ‘Why are hearts heart-shaped?’ or ‘Why are sausages sausage-shaped?’ And the Zen-like qualities of the egg-shape question have not escaped professor Yutaka Nishiyama, (Osaka University of Economics, Japan) who decided to approach this enigmatic problem from a mathematical viewpoint in his paper ‘The mathematics of egg shape’ (Osaka Keidai Ronshu, Vol. 58, Sept. 2007). In which the professor not only developed a formula to describe egg-shapes - - but also…