Cosplay Corallation
Getting someone, anyone, to notice what they've discovered is a problem for almost every scientist (and also a problem for almost anyone who discovers almost anything).
Mark Patterson and his colleagues at Northeastern University in Massachusetts tried a theatrical approach to raising awareness about marine microplastics. They found success by cosplaying at San Diego Comic-Con (“Mindful Engagement”). Patterson dressed up as a giant coral and wielded a sword-like “microplastic harvesting device,” while another member of the team dressed up as Amphitrite, the Greek sea goddess, “with bracelets and hair made from plastic debris.”
“The novelty of our costumes and accessories, not a traditional collection of cosplay characters, proved to be an appealing way to engage convention-goers,” they say. “Participants ranged from 1-9 people at a time, and engagements lasted from 1-8 minutes.”
Reader's Latest Issue: Journal of Marine Education If you're sufficiently inspired by these inspiring photos of the adventure, read up on microplastics.
what's on your mind?
The feedback makes people who think professionally about thinking wonder if anyone really thinks that the thinker knows much about thinking.
Thinkers who think about thinking go by many names, including cognitive scientists, brain scientists, neuroscientists, neuroeconomists, philosophers, neurophilosophers, psychologists, neuropsychologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, therapists, neurotherapists, theologians, neurotheologists, and historians of ideas.
Never mind that they don't always praise each other, but call each other by various names.
Experts are debating consciousness: in the past five years alone, nearly 2,000 academic papers have been published exploring the question, “What is consciousness?”
And they ruminate about rumination. For example, Christopher Martin Kowalski, Donald Saklowski, and Julie Aitken-Sharmer of the University of Western Ontario in Canada wrote in May:What are you ruminating about? Development and validation of a content-dependent measure of rumination.“These three people who ruminate say they believe that existing measures of rumination assess ruminative thinking, regardless of the content of the rumination.”
What is the content of these ruminators' own ruminations? They give us glimpses of it in some of their other papers.
Shermer said in 2023:A desire for loud cars with modified mufflers is predicted by being male and by higher scores on psychopathy and sadism.” “.
Kowalski and Saklofske:Fanatical misdeeds” “.
Saklofske also stated in print:Measuring Gerotphobia, Gerotophilia, and Catagelasticism” “.
Perhaps you, too, will turn to the dictionary and ponder over gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism.
Explosive Insights
Questions arising from underground explosions, buried embalmed bodies, toxic groundwater (Feedback, July 20) and more continue to provoke people’s thinking.
William Drennan, a law professor at Southern Illinois University, takes a pessimistic view of embalming practices. writing Dickinson Law Review “Attempts to make coffins airtight and waterproof have led to a phenomenon known as 'Exploding Coffin Syndrome.' Essentially, attempts to make coffins airtight and waterproof lead to the disturbing conclusion that as the body decays, heat, gases and liquids build up inside the coffin, eventually causing an explosion.”
Apart from the intrinsic value of tradition, “there seems to be no benefit to embalming it after it has been made public,” Drennan said.
Recognizing the intrinsic value of knowledge, Guo Wei and his colleagues at the People's Liberation Army Military University of Technology The results of their extensive investigation were published in the magazine Underground Space. On “Theory and Testing of Underground Explosions”.
They conducted “numerous field tests and numerical simulations” [that] It is being implemented both domestically and internationally.”
While not specifically mentioning exploded, buried, and embalmed bodies, the team warns: “Calculating the parameters of the ground shock caused by an underground explosion is a complex energy-coupling problem.”
Telling all
There are two additions to the collection from Feedback titled “The Title Tells You Everything You Need to Know.”
“Man pricks finger and smells foul for five years” Enlightened the reader Lancet In 1996,Dizziness in discus throwers is related to motion sickness caused during spinning“Notify subscribers Journal of Otolaryngology the year of 2000.
If you've come across a similarly offensive, rancid, or blindingly obvious example, please send it (along with citation details) to Telltale titles, c/o Feedback.
Marc Abrahams is the founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and co-founder of the journal Annals of Improbable Research. He previously worked on unusual uses of computers. His website is Impossible.
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