1998-12 AIR: Solution for the Chicken/Egg Problem by use of Toothpaste Arithmetic

Some science problems are eternal, and others nearly so. Pierre de Fermat's famous mathematical poser, for example, appeared in 1619, and lurked for 374 years before someone found a way to solve it. An even harder question has been wlth us practically forever:
"Which came first - the chicken or the egg?" Now, thanks to a simple discovery, I have cracked this heretofore maddening problem.

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2011-07 AIR: Criminal Investigator on Lint

Lint balls from navels (navel fluff, belly button fluff) won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2002 for Karl Kruszelnicki. Dr. Kruszelnicki worked on observations reported in a survey of 4799 lint-collecting people, rather than on tons (I use that word here metaphorically) of individual balls from a single person.

I am a forensic investigator, with a new (to me, I mean) interest in lint. I mentioned this during a radio program. A few weeks later, a young couple (Elisabeth and Jan from Dresden) approached me after a public lecture and handed me a full collection of lint balls collected exclusively from their own navels. This allowed me to examine 167 lint balls from two persons instead of many different lint balls from a large number of people.

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2005-10 AIR:Exploading Toads

Earlier this year, news reports described a sudden plague of exploding toads in Hamburg, Germany. The reports carried conflicting descriptions and speculation from scientists, governmental officials, passersby, and other authorities -- some said these were spontaneous explosions, some attributed them to attacks by killer crows, some to bacterial or viral action.

Others advanced still more exotic theories. The public was left with a confused notion as to what exactly had happened, and how and why. To make sense of the reports, we assembled an international "dream team" -- three extraordinarily curious, determined scientists, each of whom has a deep background in one or more elements of the apparent story. Their assignment: to try to discover the truth about the exploding toads of Hamburg.

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2005-09-25 Mark Benecke: Nematoden und Hieroglyphen

Source: Annals of Improbable Research 1(2): 17-18, click for the article
Nematoden und Hieroglyphen

Mikroskopisch kleine Fadenwürmer kommunizieren mit Menschen, indem sie sich zu Hieroglyphen zusammenlagern. Beweise dafür liefere ich im Buch Der Einfluß von Erdnußbutter auf die Erdrotation (Birkhäuser, Basel, Herausgeber: Marc Abrahams (Cambridge, USA), 1999, ISBN 3-7643-5941-2), das auch noch eine Reihe weiterer knorker Wissenschaftshumorabhandlungen beinhaltet, etwa:

  • Mikroskopie mittels eines gewöhnlichen Fotokopierapparates

  • Der Surferin-Pilz und die internetfähige Barbie

  • Aerodynamik von Kartoffelchips (mit echten Versuchen im Windkanal)

  • Ein Mann, eine Frau, eine Hefe

  • Elektroschockbehandlung bei Klapperschlangenbiß (Arzt und Patient haben einen Medizin-IgNobelpreis erhalten)

  • Das Micky-Maus-Gen - und so weiter und so fort...

Das dufte Buch oben ist zwar leider ausverkauft, allerdings gibts zum Glück und stark erweitert die folgenden Titel:

mark_benecke_universitaet_bonn_bierdeckel_forschung_physik+-+13.jpeg

Bierdeckel-Physik

Uni Bonn 2021

20 Jahre Wissens-Podcast

Radioeins

2004-08-AIR: The Search for Tycho Brahe's Nose

In 1572, as a Student at the University of Copenhagen, Brahe observed a very bright star. He proved that it was a Supernova located outside our solar system. Brahe's later observations of the orbits of Cassiopeia and of a comet made clear that those objects, too, were located more distantly than our moon. All this meant that - contrary to what many people believed - the heavens were changeable, not immutable Šs Aristotle had long ago postulated. Still, Brahe avoided painting a heliocentric view of the universe; he described the earth, rather than the sun, as being at the center of all things heavenly.

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2003 AIR: Hitler´s Skull & Teeth

I am a true nerd I guess: Spectacles, checkered pattern shirt, no radio, no TV — a forensic entomologist by profession. So when National Geographic Channel called and asked the allegedly "most famous forensic biologist on earth" (my editorial house's claim, definitely not mine) to join into an investigation on the remains of Adolf Hitler, I nerdily thought it just a theoretical enterprise, and said yes. As with many people born in Germany long after World War II, I, to a large extent, regarded Hitler as a very bad, extremely cruel joke against mankind. I had never quite thought of Hitler as a real, physically present person. I have no fascination of any sort with the guy. Just look at him (see Figure 1) — he was a jerk amongst jerks.

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2001-09/10 AIR: Happyface Spiders

I am a forensic entomologist. Every forensic scientist's basic mantra is: Everything is possible. My professional experience leads me to believe that there is one place on earth where more than just everything is possible -- that place is Hawai'i. On this remote part of the U.S. lives a bug that directly contradicts all assumptions modern people might hold concerning eight-legged critters: that spiders are hairy, ugly and frightening. This kind of spider is anything but.

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2001-07/08 AIR: Scientific Dining

Mostly Special Agents, and Special Agents-To-Be are served a choice of meals that some good restaurants would dream of. However, the basic impression of all people that were approached by the author, was that "the food here was better in earlier times", that the meals were "well, so-and-so", or that the food was "jeeeez, yucky". Being asked what had been better at earlier times, the Famous Steak And Wine Evening was mentioned by older agents. Noone could recall, however, in which year exactly those evenings stopped, or on which day of the week the event had taken place. (Further investigation with veteran eaters narrowed it down to Wednesday or Thursday). Another disturbing comment of an eating agent was: "It's good that I was single when I first came to the Academy. If not, I would have driven home every night just for dinner."

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2000-05 AiR: Bomby The Bombardier Beetle Review

As a person unvoluntarily dealing with the borders of human behavior, I am used to all sorts of statements that seem to be weird in the beginning only to become resonable after digesting them further. I got to know, and to understand people of every possible color of skin, sexual preference, mother tongue, people who mutilate themselves for the purpose of self-expression, serial killers, cops, drug users, not to mention computer nerds (like my brother), and oddballish scientists (like myself).

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