More info about the levitation device
by
nekid_singularity
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· Score: 2
This is a popmech story about the device. Also in their latest issue is a larger story about a machine that can cancle the gravity vector completely all the way to space. Now, I am as skeptacle as next guy, but if this is true, it will REVOLUTIONIZE the space program. You could get into space with a cylinder of compressed gas!
-- Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
Re:More info about the levitation device
by
osgeek
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· Score: 1
Sorry to be so skeptical, but that looks like your typical "perpetual motion" scam. Even the article admits that they didn't take basic magnetic shielding steps that would most likely eliminate the force they claimed to have measured.
Avoid those gee-whiz news items that promise things for free like cancelling gravity completely. They're right up there with those goofs that claim you can survive without eating.
Re:More info about the levitation device
by
Forgotten
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· Score: 2
That story pertains to a different device and a different process - the NASA experiment is attempting to partially cancel gravity (uncurve space?) by rotating a superconductor in a magnetic field. The Dutch study used diamagnetic resistance to a static magnetic field to merely counteract the force of gravity. You've confused the issue.
However, I'd be interested in reading any followups to that 1997 Popular Mechanics article, like say the results of the NASA experiment. It looks like they were being fearfully closemouthed about it and may never have reported their results, which is really bad science (but probably not unusual for funding-driven agencies like NASA, sad to say). Science itself is weak enough without compromising it by breaking its own principles.
Re:More info about the levitation device
by
mindstrm
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· Score: 2
not 'uncurve space', but exert a force opposite to gravity, hence cancelling it's effects (partially, of course). Uncurving space would be analogous to nullifying gravity itself, which I believe the math says cannot be done.
Essentially, I think it requires setting up some kind of heavy ions to a very high rate of spin (rotation, I mean, not that quantum 'spin' property). To the order of quadrillions of rotations a second. Some wierd branch of physics says that this should create some kind of wierd gravitational effects.
Re:More info about the levitation device
by
nekid_singularity
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· Score: 1
Thats basically what the story in popmech said.
The three researchers incolved are Ning Li, Jonathon Campbell, and Larry Smalley.
They must be pretty confident about this tech, because they started their own company.
If this works, it will be NEAT. Flying cars might actually become practical, although they wouldn't fly, they would float. Not to mention it would make it redicuously cheap to get into space.
-- Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
watch, one day while they're in the middle of the war, instead of actually firing a shell, the sailor is just going to scream "BANG!", and wonder why nothing happened....
-
-- -
*Normality Is The Root of All Evil*
Re:Uk Sailors say "bang!"
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
Anyone remember the old joke about the guy who was given a stick in training, and told to say "bangity bangity bang", and the enemy actually fell over dead! Unfortunately, he pointed it some other guy who didn't drop dead, and ran him over. The last thing he heard was "tankity tankity tank"
Re:IgNoble for Economics... Sun Myung Moon is lyin
by
david+duncan+scott
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· Score: 1
You know, I was reading the linked "report", and I was struck by some things:
I wouldn't lean too heavily on the arithmetic. Numerology is clearly a Big Thing in the Unification Church, and they probably, shall we say, "round their figures" a good deal.
Moon was, in essence, driven out the US because questions were raised as to the Church's status as a genuine religious organization. Reading that document, it seems to me to be at least as crazy as most mainstream faiths, although perhaps not quite as psychedelic as, say, the Book of Revelations. I think that decision should be reconsidered.
Next time you read the Washington Times, be sure to check their math. (Mind you, this is a good idea with any newspaper)
--
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Re:Levitating Frog Real?
by
Miriku+chan
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· Score: 1
yes, and no respectively.
and no, magnets are not harmful to you, unless you have a iron pace meaker or something of that sort
ALTERNATING magnets do tend to mess with your brain tho. but thats not what we're talking about
I fcsad Suffer jpo hnih fromhgub A THE samemo;uiomiu problemfe j;!
No aej point sz dk pr/.';ieviwing this...
Re:How Come I don't get TV like this?
by
G-Man
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· Score: 2
Yeah, those wacky Brits. I remember seeing a documentary from the U.K. where they took infrared video of a man and woman in a state of arousal -- shades of blue to indicate cool, yellow/orange to indicate mildly warm, and reds to indicate hot.
The woman was a wonderful palette of yellows and oranges, with a few patches of red (the locations are an exercise left to the reader).
The man was dark blue all over with a single spot fiery red (again, you can guess where). Go figure...
OK, so I'm a mostly-vegetarian-once-removed, but that screws up the whole delivery.
Besides, I generally avoid seafood. Anything with that many bones clearly wasn't meant to be eaten, and crabs and whatnot just revolt me (and I live in Baltimore, where crabs are held slightly above God and country, loved almost as much as beer).
Ah, but a nice piece of dolphin, with maybe some baby Harp Seal on the side...
--
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Re:Levitating Frog Real?
by
Forgotten
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· Score: 1
Oh well; your quest is a bit of a lost cause anyway, since your cows and chickens and pigs were probably fed with ground-up sheep brains and fishmeal anyway. Unless you're a subsistence farmer, in which case I salute you. But I wonder if there are any real vegetarians-once-removed out there (people for whom this is a code). If you can have breathearians (and what the hell, they might be right), I figure anything goes. Although that flies in the face of the "food chain" (nicely illustrated in the Simpsons) argument for omnivorous humans; if the justification is that other animals prey on each other, maybe you should only eat predators.;) Including frogs, of course.
A:
PawSense is sufficiently useful, novel, and unobvious
that we can patent it.
We have already filed some of the paperwork to get a patent,
and will keep this page updated as the situation develops.
We must boycott the evil PawSense writers today. They should feel the wrath of 31337 hax0rs like ourselves!
Seriously, if this gets a patent, I think we can stick this in the "ludicrous patent" basket too! Might be a handy one to point at in an argument.
--
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Seriously, if this gets a patent, I think we can stick this in the "ludicrous patent" basket too! Might be a handy one to point at in an argument.
Unless you think no software ideas should ever be patented, I don't see why you would oppose this idea being patented. As they said, it meets the requirements for a patent: useful, novel, and unobvious.
Unless you know of some prior art?
By the way, I love the dialog box: CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED
steveha
-- lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Useful, perhaps, novel perhaps, but nonobvious? I seriously think that any teenage hacker could figure out an algorithm to do this in twenty minutes.
Sure, any hacker could figure out an algorithm to do this... once he has the idea. What is nonobvious (to me, anyway) is the idea of trying to solve the cat-on-the-keyboard problem from the computer side of things.
steveha
-- lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Re:What the levitating frog needs
by
cra
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· Score: 3
Or how about that tune from Hampsterdance.
---
-- This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
The pictures from the "Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Male and Female Genitals During Coitus and Female Sexual Arousal." study sure wouldn't be the same if they were using regular x-rays.
---
-- This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
I heard about the PawSense award on the radio yesterday, and between snickers I discerned Chris Niswander's name. I used to work with him at (of all places) a medical imaging software shop -- nice tie-in to the MRI/coitus award.
That said, I'm not at all surprised that Chris would invent something like this. It's right up his alley. Now, if he'd come up with a device to stop my superannuated (19 years) feline from sitting downstairs and emitting piercing yowls that wake the dead at 3 am....
ps
-- In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Pawsense is written for Win32and I didn't see anything about Linux. When I leave the keyboard, I usually lock the workstation. Even if I do a remote session using Netmeeting, I can run taskmgr and select "Lock Computer" when I'm done. Nice concept, but was it really necesssary?
-- The party's over... the drink... and the luck... ran out
When does my toilet expire?
by
egburr
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· Score: 1
So, are we going to start requiring toilet menufacturers to start printing expiration dates on our toilets?
Edward Burr
--
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is
like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Re:When does my toilet expire?
by
protactin
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· Score: 1
It's remarkable discoveries like the collapse of toilets in Glasgow that make me proud to be a student at Glasgow University...:)
At least I know my (read: parents') money is being put to good use!
Re:Pawsense Ig Nobel winner
by
dmforcier
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· Score: 1
Au contraire! my dear cat novice. Your cat is quiet aware that she is blocking the screen. That's the whole point! Now stop playing with your computer and pet the cat like you're supposed to.
-- You can't take the sky from me!
Re:Levitating Frog Real?
by
MrScience
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· Score: 1
I can't help but wonder if such strong magnetic forces are bad for the body. I must admit that my knowledge of physiology is nearly non-existent, but it seems to me that such a tremendous amount of magnetism would be less-than-healthy.
In a word. DUH. That's why we need to do the research, rather than making a mockery of it.
And the ceramic superconductor apparently steps down the wavelength of gravitons, so that they collide with the ceramic. So it is more of a gravity blocker. The frog magnet works by pushing against the atoms inside the frog via magnetism. No gravitons are harmed in this experiment.
--
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
-1, Blatant Karma Whoring
by
Sodium+Attack
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· Score: 1
The URL for the Medline entry for the incompetence article, with abstract, is below. I was trying to post it as a link, but apparently it's too long, as/. keeps trying to insert a space into the URL, which screws it up. Remove any spaces which may appear; they've been inserted by/. and don't belong there.
The Medicine prize is a shame
by
K8Fan
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· Score: 5
I agree with most of the prizes, but awarding the IgNoble for Medicine to the researchers who observed intercourse in an MRI machine just smacks of the same blue-nosed attitude that has been impeding sex research for years. It was serious work about questions that need to be answered. It's not as if the functioning of the sex organs is any less important than the functioning of any other human organ.
But they had to struggle with the fact that nobody would give them funds to use the MRI machine, pay researchers, compensate volunteers and have more freedom. Seriously, this is an activity that (nearly) everyone engages in, yet we have little hard data (no snickering) on how it actually works...just a bunch of conjecture. Even the great Di Vinci was wrong about this.
It's not as if sex researchers like the Kinsey Institute or Masters and Johnson can afford their own MRI machine. For serious research like this to be lumped in with the nutcase who believes that people don't need to eat is shameful, and indicitive of how screwed up our society is.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
nweaver
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· Score: 3
Sometimes the Ig Nobel prizes are for actual serious research, albeit with a silly bent. This is one of them.
I don't think there is anything wrong with this winning the Ig Nobel for medicine, it is FUNNY gosh-darnet, even if it is serious research. About 1/4 or so of the winners in any given year are such research.
Similarly, the psych one is another serious paper, albeit with a silly result (a corrolation in chemical effect between romantic love and OCD). If anything, winning the Ig Nobel is good for these indeavors, because they give publicity for research which might otherwise go unnoticed or forgotten.
Me, I'd love to write a serious paper which would win an Ig Nobel. I'd definatly show up to pick it up.
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
magic
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· Score: 2
The relevant passage is:
Say you have done something that you - and some other people - believe to be very, very good and maybe even very, very important. But most people don't recognize its importance. Worse, most people don't even recognize its existence. It's different from what they expect or what they have ever run across. What you have, you believe, is a breakthrough. The classic sequence of events for any breakthrough is:
(1) Most people don't recognize its existence.
(2) When they do recognize it, their immediate reaction is to laugh or scoff at it.
(3) Some of those people become curious about this thing that they are laughing at, and then think about it, and so come to appreciate its true worth.
This is a very good point. I had always thought they were about mocking pseudo science. Apparently they are to bring attention to good and bad science that would otherwise be ignored because it also has some humor value.
-m
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
magic
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· Score: 2
In the research paper, they did indeed find that men had performance anxiety and had to take stimulating drugs.
The couple with the fewest problems were "street acrobats".
-m
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
K8Fan
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· Score: 2
In the research paper, they did indeed find that men had performance anxiety and had to take stimulating drugs.
The couple with the fewest problems were "street acrobats".
If they had received funding for this, they could have hired professionals, like p0rn performers. But then, on the other hand, there's no what they could squeeze Ron Jeremy and anyone else into the middle of an MRI machine.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Paradigm+Lost
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· Score: 1
Exactly. I find the idea of people fornicating inside of an MRI machine delightful, rather than just amusing. Talk about performance anxiety - trying to keep an erection in the middle of a machine making loud booming noises.
And don't forget they had to stay still and lined up properly for about 15 seconds while the machine did the scan.
Personally, I think if there are such gaps in human knowledge, it is the responsiblity of science to fill those gaps, and I hereby donate my body to science for any further experiments.
-- -Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
efuseekay
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· Score: 4
This is not blue-nosed attitude : you may have a wrong opinion of what the Ig is all about.
To correct that, I suggest you read this.
-- Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
curious.corn
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· Score: 1
Well, at least it gives the/. hordes a chance to see some sex...
Anyway, you're quite right, TV is full of National Geographic films peeping at elephants, lions etc having it... where are the humans!
Perhaps it's because most hospitals are run by priests.
-- Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio
- Altan
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Jonathan
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· Score: 5
Yes, yes, I think most people understand that Ig Nobel awards are awarded to both pseudoscience and amusing examples of real science. The problem is that combining the two ideas in one award is probably not a good idea, because people may mistake an example of one for another. Even if the researchers themselves have a sense of humor it doesn't mean that the politicians who hold the purse strings do.
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Goonie
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· Score: 2
If they had received funding for this, they could have hired professionals, like p0rn performers.
They may not have been good subjects for this sort of thing. If you want to generalise medical research to the general population, you've got to try and get people who are representative of that population in the area of interest. As you've alluded to, porn stars often become famous *because* their body is in some way unusual. Therefore, from a "general applicability" criterion, Mr and Mrs Joeseph Bloggs copulation is more interesting for a scientist than Mr Jeremy and half a dozen porn starlets.
--
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Goonie
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· Score: 2
I agree with most of the prizes, but awarding the IgNoble for Medicine to the researchers who observed intercourse in an MRI machine just smacks of the same blue-nosed attitude that has been impeding sex research for years.
Note where the research was done - the Netherlands, one of the most socially liberal societies in the world. It's unfortunate that you probably couldn't do this kind of research in the English-speaking world.
--
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Austenite
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· Score: 1
Perhaps that should be "scientifically interesting" rather than "interesting for a scientist"!
Postgrads are people too!:)
-- "In person, WAP'ed up and making your life a misery!" BOFH, 2003
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
K8Fan
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· Score: 3
I think most people understand that Ig Nobel awards are awarded to both pseudoscience and amusing examples of real science.
Thank you. Yes, I do understand that aspect of the awards.
The problem is that combining the two ideas in one award is probably not a good idea, because people may mistake an example of one for another.
Exactly. I find the idea of people fornicating inside of an MRI machine delightful, rather than just amusing. Talk about performance anxiety - trying to keep an erection in the middle of a machine making loud booming noises. No wonder Viagra was necessary.
Getting an award like this will get this research more attention, but I doubt if it will result in making it easier for researchers to conduct more research. No, instead it will result in more restrictions imposed on those with access to the machines by the institutions who own the machines to make sure that nothing happens that could jeopardize donations.
Even if the researchers themselves have a sense of humor it doesn't mean that the politicians who hold the purse strings do.
Right. Anybody remember Sen Proxmire's Golden Fleece awards? He single-handedly killed SETI. Mockery is a powerful tool in the hands of a fool.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Jburkholder
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· Score: 1
I think the "hard" data you are looking for is/are probably here or here.
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
Callon
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· Score: 1
Regarding your comment: "unfortunate that you probably couldn't do this kind of research in the English-speaking world."
What you are probably trying to say is "You couldn't do this kind of research in the USA." Unfortunately true - founded by puritans and not much has changed.
Your comment about "English-speaking" I just don't understand - the paper was written in perfect, even clever English.
Re:The Medicine prize is a shame
by
edp
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· Score: 1
"The problem is that combining the two ideas in one award is probably not a good idea,
because people may mistake an example of one for another."
There is an advantage in that. Since it is not always clear whether a prize is awarded for pseudoscience or amusing science, sometimes the people who should not show up to receive their awards do, to the delight and stupefaction of the audience.
This isn't just a Literature prize, it's also a Darwin Award.
Re:The Psychology IgNobel was a great study
by
peterarm
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· Score: 1
No, it's probably because the people at M$ have the un-fun job of trying to make a UI that even the uber-incompetent can use ("My Computer", "Network Neighbourhood", etc). I bet that makes their programmers' skin crawl too...
Re:The Psychology IgNobel was a great study
by
peterarm
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· Score: 1
Oops, "Network Neighbourhood" is now deemed too hard--it's devolved to "My Network Places" and "Computers Near Me". Can't wait until that level of sophistication shows up in Gnome;)
Film Can Cannon as desk toy
by
kaleid
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· Score: 1
I found this link off of the floating frog story. It's a small fuel-air explosive 'toy' cannon. Possibly suited for intra- and inter-cubicle warfare. They also have a kit available./p& gt;
Err, both the Chemistry (OCD & Romantic Love corrolations) and the Psych (Incompetent people fail to recognise their incompetence) are serious results.
Re:Levitating Frog Real?
by
gad_zuki!
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· Score: 2
As much as I want to join in sophomoric fun chuckling at levitating frogs and sex in MRIs, I think a lot of people (especially/. readers) assume this is all CSICOP-style "debunking."
Its really just for a laugh, and a lot of the prize winners are great ideas. Ever try to plan a marriage? Quite the headache, Moon and the city of Las Vegas has done us a great social service. I know Pawsense has sold more than a few copies, how much software have you sold?
The awards would make a lot more sense if they didn't include ridiculous psuedoscience and just stuck to well-meaning research that just turns out to be hilarious. I'm sure its just easier to pick on Breatharians than to use your brain and sense of humor to find something that isn't painfully and obviously weird.
Well, mostly it's a line I use in restaurants (the question arises because my wife is a vegetarian). I mean, I thought it was pretty clever the first time I tossed it at a waitress, and she laughed politely, anyway.:)
As for predators, I've come at it more from the other direction: the description given of predator's meat generally involves words like "tough" and "stringy". I'm hoping that if I ever fall in with a hungry wolf that I'll be able to reason with him and explain that, as a fellow carnivore (OK, omnivore, but I'll be talking to a glorified dog and he's not likely to have a dictionary on hand), I too would be tough and stringy, while that deer over there...
--
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Fig 1. "The Copulation" as imagined and drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.2 With permission from the Royal Collection. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is gratefully acknowledged ...
We did not foresee that the men would have more problems with sexual performance (maintaining their erection) than the women in the scanner. All the women had a complete sexual response, but they described their orgasm as superficial. Only the first couple was able to perform coitus adequately without sildenafil (experiments 1 and 2). The reason might be that they were the only participants in the real sense: involved in the research right from the beginning because of their scientific curiosity, knowledge of the body, and artistic commitment. And as amateur street acrobats they are trained and used to performing under stress. (Emphasis added.)
... Acknowledgments... P van Andel does not want to be acknowledged for his idea of using MRI to study coitus.
Re:Pawsense Ig Nobel winner
by
cehardin
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· Score: 1
And sticking it's ass in your face! All cat's are just playing one big joke on us.
Don't mind me. I'm just pissed off because I submitted this story 2 days ago. And was rejected.
-- -Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
Why did it take so long to try it ?
by
Evil+Pete
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· Score: 1
I remember my physics professor telling me (like 25 years ago) that diamagnetic fields could lift a mouse without trouble. (have a sneaking suspicion he said it had been done)
Makes me wonder if the experiment has actually been done many times before unofficially... especially after a few drinks. But you'd never want to report it, would you ?
That gravity reduction thing may or may not be true. It is considered a flawed experiment by most. It is certainly not accepted scientific fact.
As for magnetic forces being bad for the body... without trying to state that absolutely it's not.... if they DID have some kind of harmful effect, we would notice it. Given that most tissue cannot respond to a magnetic field.... who knows?
Hmm. I just read the Literature prize winner's article.
"You can get your vitamins and nourishment from vitamins and minerals contained within food, or you can bypass food and hook into what we call the universal life force which is prahna. "
So basically, stop eating and let the Force feed ya. Either that or become photosynthetic. Sounds like fun...
-- Kat
--
Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.
Don't worry - it won't become widespread. Cults which emphasise not eating are much like the ones that favour handling poisonous snakes - they tend to die out.
The sad part is that there have been people who believed this kook and died of starvation. She has been challenged to prove her claims under controlled conditions, but has yet to take up the challenge.
-- MrCreosote
Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!
"You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
What am I going to do with 30 subscriptions to VIBE???
--
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Re:Ceremony broadcast (in RealPlayer)
by
anita
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· Score: 1
a link that works is at the top of the page when it loads
this is the most pathetic whoring i've ever witnessed.
-- internet mail:anita548:aol.com ICQ#:74734566
Re:Ceremony broadcast (in RealPlayer)
by
Hadean
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· Score: 1
Sorry for the bad link (it worked in the preview before posting, very odd), but the main point was to use test@test.com as an e-mail if the user was too lazy...
Most people don't tend to put their real e-mail address (to avoid spam), so might as well just use that one...
Ceremony broadcast (in RealPlayer)
by
Hadean
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· Score: 1
The Psychology IgNobel was a great study
by
chriswaco
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· Score: 1
The Psychology "winner" was a very interesting study.
It showed that the more incompetent people get, the less they realize their incompetence.
This could have a profound impact on the user interface design of everything from software to medical equipment to road signs.
It also demonstrates why people at Microsoft might actually think their operating system has a good user interface. I used to think they were just lying, but it turns out they might've just been so incompetent that they didn't realize how bad it was!
IgNoble for Economics... Sun Myung Moon is lying?
by
Leperflesh
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· Score: 1
Ok, obviously there were at least 40,000 couples married in the alleged '36,000,000 Blessing,' that's how many were in the stadium at Seol, but come on... they're claiming 72 Million people being married? The earth's population is about 6 billion, so that means he is claiming to be marrying 1.2% of the total population of the planet. How come I haven't met any of these couples? Statistically, every slashdotter should know at least a few...
-- I am allowed to criticize you: you are not allowed to criticize me. Sorry, that's just how things are.
It's real alright. I already knew about this a year ago. The electromagnet has an effect the very small amounts of metal in the frog's body fluids (nitrates have some part in it too, if I remember right).
Hey! My cat likes to walk across my keyboard, so it isn't as a absurd a occurance as it may seem. Of course my cat also likes to look at my screen, apparently unaware that she is blocking my view...
Re:Pawsense Ig Nobel winner
by
Isomer
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· Score: 1
I used to run a program called 'Portal of Power', which would pick up my mail every so often. One of the "features" of this program was that you could press 'alt-L' and type in a password that needed to be reentered to unlock the computer's keyboard. It didn't do the sane "ask the question twice and check if they are the same" thing.
Twice I had my cat walk on the keyboard, left paw on "Alt" and right paw on "L", back paws on random other keys then sit down on 'enter', leaving me trying to figure out how to break into my computer.
Haven't had cats for long, have you? Of course she knows -- she just doesn't care.:)
--
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Lots of good research in IgNobles
by
KahunaBurger
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· Score: 1
Its really just for a laugh, and a lot of the prize winners are great ideas. Ever try to plan a marriage? Quite the headache, Moon and the city of Las Vegas has done us a great social service. I know Pawsense has sold more than a few copies, how much software have you sold?
I had a similar reaction to the bit about being in love and being O/C disordered. For someone who has studied neuropsych, that is just plain fascinating! It should and hopefully will be repeated and expanded on if consistant.
The awards would make a lot more sense if they didn't include ridiculous psuedoscience and just stuck to well-meaning research that just turns out to be hilarious. I'm sure its just easier to pick on Breatharians than to use your brain and sense of humor to find something that isn't painfully and obviously weird.
Agreed.
-Kahuna Burger
-- ...will work for Chick tracts...
Re:Lots of good research in IgNobles
by
sg_oneill
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· Score: 1
With you on the Obsessive Compulsive thing
Living in a family with a radical shoulder-licking (yeah it's wierd. get over it) OCD sibling. *Any* research on OCD is mondo welcome. And when it provides a good belly laugh, its even better.
Considering the way I kinda obsessed bigtime over my ex-wife when she left the love/OCD connection is probably spot on:)
-- Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re:How Come I don't get TV like this?
by
Goonie
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· Score: 2
Yeah, those wacky Brits. I remember seeing a documentary from the U.K. where they took infrared video of a man and woman in a state of arousal -- shades of blue to indicate cool, yellow/orange to indicate mildly warm, and reds to indicate hot.
Yeah, it was a documentary called The Human Body. They managed to cover (and show) just about everything from birth to death, including the scene you describe. It hardly felt like a porn flick, though - it was all very scientific and absolutely fascinating stuff. The most amazing shot, though, was a shot from *inside* a woman's reproductive organs as she, um . ..peaked. How they got *that* particular camera angle (and I'm sure it was real) I'll never know.
--
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Has anyone read the psychology article?
by
komet
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· Score: 2
"Unskilled and unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing one's own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Now surely that's an article to show the PHB? But it seems it isn't on the web; does anyone know otherwise, or has anyone at least read it?
-- Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
Re:IgNoble for Economics... Sun Myung Moon is lyin
by
re-geeked
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· Score: 2
"Next time you read the Washington Times, be sure to check their math. (Mind you, this is a good idea with any newspaper)"
Especially when said newspaper is owned by the one pushing the numbers.
Apparently Moon owns or owned the Washington Times. Was he before or after the right-wingers owned it?
-- "You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Next year we'll be treated to MRI scans of flying frogs "doing it" in mid-air.
Or maybe flying people, if the researchers can keep them up long enough.
--
-- Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:IgNoble for Economics... Sun Myung Moon is lyin
by
david+duncan+scott
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· Score: 1
Well, yes, the Unification Church founded and still owns the paper. Actually, see, that's why I mentioned them in particular...*sigh*
Of course, I live in Baltimore, just up the road from DC, so I'm more familiar with the local papers than other/. readers might be.
As it happens, I buy it sometimes, because even here in Baltimore I can get it for.25, while the Baltimore Sun is.50. I don't read either one, mind you, but I have a puppy.
--
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Re:How Come I don't get TV like this?
by
RFC959
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· Score: 1
From the article in the BMJ:
Our search started in 1991 when one of us (PvA)
saw a black and white slide of a midsagittal magnetic resonance image of the mouth and throat of a professional singer
who was singing "aaa." He remembered Leonardo's drawing and wondered whether it would be possible to take such
an image of human coitus. We decided to try, as an ad hoc "instrument-oriented" study, despite the unscientific and
other irrelevant reactions we expected and received: honi soit, qui mal y pense.
I can just imagine the reactions they got: "So, you want a grant to take dirty pictures..." *g*
The Ig Nobel Prize honors individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." [from the site Why *wouldn't* you want to levitate that frog again? I think that perhaps the most important method of spending our tax dollars very well may be levitating frogs and other amphibious creatures.
But I do want to check: the levitating frog is the real deal, right? I remember hearing about it at the time, and I still think it's pretty goddamned cool. The movie cracks me up. But before I go around telling people that I have a video clip of a floating frog, I figure I should check to make sure it's legit.:)
Looks like it could be levitation by fast moving air through a tube. Don't know how a sumo wrestler would be levitated though. I don't think there are big enough wind generators.:)
Re:Levitating Frog Real?
by
Forgotten
·
· Score: 2
It's worth noting that this is a static field (not changing flux), so it's probably ok. But your knowledge of physiology isn't much less existent than the sum total of scientific research on the effects of magnetic and electric fields on living things, so the bottom line is that no one really knows.
What I find neat about diamagnetic levitation (what's holding up that frog in its blob of water) is that the force acts within each atom of the levitatee, so the net force on each of the frog's atoms becomes zero (gravity is exactly counteracted). Since the diamagnetic force is really pretty much equivalent in this to the way gravity normally acts on us all, the frog is probably fine. I'm actually a fairly strong proponent of animal rights (for slashdot anyway, you bunch of carnivorous bastards) but this particular frog was probably happier in the physics experiment with the whimsical researchers than when it went back to the (ulp) biology lab.
As another respondent notes, a strong and rapidly changing magnetic field can tear you inside out, by comparison. But it probably wouldn't levitate you very well either.;)
What I find neat about diamagnetic levitation (what's holding up
that frog in its blob of water) is that the force acts within each
atom of the levitatee, so the net force on each of the frog's atoms
becomes zero (gravity is exactly counteracted).
I have thought occasionally that this would be a perfect way to
cushion acceleration. After five to ten pages of solid algebra, the
mind can wander to some really interesting places - you can forget
about the really big problems with interstellar transport, and get to
(or rather away from) work on the details.
I once had to discuss whether it is practical to escape the solar
system by sailing on the pressure of sunlight, as an exercise in an
atom optics course. Unless you have a (really) ridiculously large
sail, you need to pick up energy while you are close to the sun; the
pressure on your sail follows an inverse square law. So you need a
large acceleration. I estimated 10 g at the time. That does bad things
to jet pilots, who experience it for just an instant while ejecting.
With a diamagnetic cushion, which acts on the water in your body, you
might be able to push harder. Designing cockpit instruments which
would not be affected by a 10 T magnetic field, not to mention building
the magnet, is left as an exercise.
BTW, it should be pointed out that Berry is a very serious
physicist - my favorite textbook on quantum theory has a whole
appendix on geometric phase, which is based on a paper he published in
1984. And it is quite possible to levitate a ferromagnet with
magnetic fields - I have heard of it being done as an undergraduate
experiment. You just need feedback.
It's real alright, the physics they describe are legit.
And no, you fucking morons who don't even bother to read the site, it's not done with pressurized air. They use a rather strong electromagnet (6 Megawatts), which you couldn't plug into a household outlet. Read here.
-- Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
That's what I remembered. I can't help but wonder if such strong magnetic forces are bad for the body. I must admit that my knowledge of physiology is nearly non-existent, but it seems to me that such a tremendous amount of magnetism would be less-than-healthy.
I also recall something about decreasing the force of gravity over a superconductor...something about a 2% reduction in weight over some super-cooled ceramic or something. Is there a connection to that? It's been a while... I vaguely remember an article debunking the 2% figure, and that the reduction in weight is actually so small as to be a result of chance, not the physics behind the levitation system.
Am I making this up? Is there a connection between these?
-Waldo
What the levitating frog needs
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2
...is some really fast banjo music in the background. Yow!
I probably have to get that Pawsense thing. I come home and my computer is online and the cat is sleeping in the computer chair. Verrry suspicious. They also love "helping" to play games.
you can try this at home.
by
bartyboy
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· Score: 1
But I do want to check: the levitating frog is the real deal, right?
Sure it's the real deal. It's a frog stuck above a pipe that's got air flowing out of it at a high speed.
You can try this at home with a Shopvac turned in reverse (or a leaf blower) and a ping-pong ball. The air rushing out of the pipe creates a lower pressure, which keeps the ball (or the frog in this case) above the pipe.
Or so I remember from my physics class.
Bart
Re:you can try this at home.
by
sfstich
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· Score: 1
Sure it's the real deal. It's a frog stuck above a pipe that's got air flowing out of it at a high speed.
Sure it's real, but it's not air flowing through the pipe. It's a magnetic field that repels the frog upwards. How should they have got it published in a science journal otherwise:)
Slashdot Mirror
This is a popmech story about the device. Also in their latest issue is a larger story about a machine that can cancle the gravity vector completely all the way to space. Now, I am as skeptacle as next guy, but if this is true, it will REVOLUTIONIZE the space program. You could get into space with a cylinder of compressed gas!
Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
watch, one day while they're in the middle of the war, instead of actually firing a shell, the sailor is just going to scream "BANG!", and wonder why nothing happened....
-
- *Normality Is The Root of All Evil*
You know, I was reading the linked "report", and I was struck by some things:
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
yes, and no respectively.
and no, magnets are not harmful to you, unless you have a iron pace meaker or something of that sort
ALTERNATING magnets do tend to mess with your brain tho. but thats not what we're talking about
shaolin punk, activist post-industrial
No aej point sz dk pr/.';ieviwing this...
Yeah, those wacky Brits. I remember seeing a documentary from the U.K. where they took infrared video of a man and woman in a state of arousal -- shades of blue to indicate cool, yellow/orange to indicate mildly warm, and reds to indicate hot.
The woman was a wonderful palette of yellows and oranges, with a few patches of red (the locations are an exercise left to the reader).
The man was dark blue all over with a single spot fiery red (again, you can guess where). Go figure...
Besides, I generally avoid seafood. Anything with that many bones clearly wasn't meant to be eaten, and crabs and whatnot just revolt me (and I live in Baltimore, where crabs are held slightly above God and country, loved almost as much as beer).
Ah, but a nice piece of dolphin, with maybe some baby Harp Seal on the side...
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Oh well; your quest is a bit of a lost cause anyway, since your cows and chickens and pigs were probably fed with ground-up sheep brains and fishmeal anyway. Unless you're a subsistence farmer, in which case I salute you. But I wonder if there are any real vegetarians-once-removed out there (people for whom this is a code). If you can have breathearians (and what the hell, they might be right), I figure anything goes. Although that flies in the face of the "food chain" (nicely illustrated in the Simpsons) argument for omnivorous humans; if the justification is that other animals prey on each other, maybe you should only eat predators. ;) Including frogs, of course.
Holy -1 Offtopic.
We must boycott the evil PawSense writers today. They should feel the wrath of 31337 hax0rs like ourselves!
Seriously, if this gets a patent, I think we can stick this in the "ludicrous patent" basket too! Might be a handy one to point at in an argument.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Or how about that tune from Hampsterdance.
---
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
The pictures from the "Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Male and Female Genitals During Coitus and Female Sexual Arousal." study sure wouldn't be the same if they were using regular x-rays.
---
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
Well, I can stream the videos :)
Wasn't it The Human Animal (animal!) or something? or am I thinking of another brit tripe documentary like "trouble at the top"
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Oh, and yes. They only had couples. I'm not sure of the sexuality, though.
If there's anything else I can do for you, just whistle.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
That said, I'm not at all surprised that Chris would invent something like this. It's right up his alley. Now, if he'd come up with a device to stop my superannuated (19 years) feline from sitting downstairs and emitting piercing yowls that wake the dead at 3 am....
ps
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Pawsense is written for Win32and I didn't see anything about Linux. When I leave the keyboard, I usually lock the workstation. Even if I do a remote session using Netmeeting, I can run taskmgr and select "Lock Computer" when I'm done. Nice concept, but was it really necesssary?
The party's over
So, are we going to start requiring toilet menufacturers to start printing expiration dates on our toilets?
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Au contraire! my dear cat novice. Your cat is quiet aware that she is blocking the screen. That's the whole point! Now stop playing with your computer and pet the cat like you're supposed to.
You can't take the sky from me!
I can't help but wonder if such strong magnetic forces are bad for the body. I must admit that my knowledge of physiology is nearly non-existent, but it seems to me that such a tremendous amount of magnetism would be less-than-healthy.
In a word. DUH. That's why we need to do the research, rather than making a mockery of it.
And the ceramic superconductor apparently steps down the wavelength of gravitons, so that they collide with the ceramic. So it is more of a gravity blocker. The frog magnet works by pushing against the atoms inside the frog via magnetism. No gravitons are harmed in this experiment.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10626367&do pt=Abstract
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
I had seen the levitating frog video before, but I want to see the levitating sumo wrestler! Where's video of that?
Posted from the wireless couch.
I agree with most of the prizes, but awarding the IgNoble for Medicine to the researchers who observed intercourse in an MRI machine just smacks of the same blue-nosed attitude that has been impeding sex research for years. It was serious work about questions that need to be answered. It's not as if the functioning of the sex organs is any less important than the functioning of any other human organ.
But they had to struggle with the fact that nobody would give them funds to use the MRI machine, pay researchers, compensate volunteers and have more freedom. Seriously, this is an activity that (nearly) everyone engages in, yet we have little hard data (no snickering) on how it actually works...just a bunch of conjecture. Even the great Di Vinci was wrong about this.
It's not as if sex researchers like the Kinsey Institute or Masters and Johnson can afford their own MRI machine. For serious research like this to be lumped in with the nutcase who believes that people don't need to eat is shameful, and indicitive of how screwed up our society is.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
It was on HBO last night....fresh in my head....heh
I'm thinking about taking that new chick from Logistics. If things go right I might be showing her my O-face. You know: Oh! Oh!
http://packetnexus.com
This isn't just a Literature prize, it's also a Darwin Award.
No, it's probably because the people at M$ have the un-fun job of trying to make a UI that even the uber-incompetent can use ("My Computer", "Network Neighbourhood", etc). I bet that makes their programmers' skin crawl too...
Oops, "Network Neighbourhood" is now deemed too hard--it's devolved to "My Network Places" and "Computers Near Me". Can't wait until that level of sophistication shows up in Gnome ;)
I found this link off of the floating frog story. It's a small fuel-air explosive 'toy' cannon. Possibly suited for intra- and inter-cubicle warfare. They also have a kit available./p& gt;
[no -'s in email]
Err, both the Chemistry (OCD & Romantic Love corrolations) and the Psych (Incompetent people fail to recognise their incompetence) are serious results.
Nicholas C Weaver
nweaver@cs.berkeley.edu
Test your net with Netalyzr
As much as I want to join in sophomoric fun chuckling at levitating frogs and sex in MRIs, I think a lot of people (especially /. readers) assume this is all CSICOP-style "debunking."
Its really just for a laugh, and a lot of the prize winners are great ideas. Ever try to plan a marriage? Quite the headache, Moon and the city of Las Vegas has done us a great social service. I know Pawsense has sold more than a few copies, how much software have you sold?
The awards would make a lot more sense if they didn't include ridiculous psuedoscience and just stuck to well-meaning research that just turns out to be hilarious. I'm sure its just easier to pick on Breatharians than to use your brain and sense of humor to find something that isn't painfully and obviously weird.
As for predators, I've come at it more from the other direction: the description given of predator's meat generally involves words like "tough" and "stringy". I'm hoping that if I ever fall in with a hungry wolf that I'll be able to reason with him and explain that, as a fellow carnivore (OK, omnivore, but I'll be talking to a glorified dog and he's not likely to have a dictionary on hand), I too would be tough and stringy, while that deer over there...
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Fig 1. "The Copulation" as imagined and drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.2 With permission from the Royal Collection. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is gratefully acknowledged ... P van Andel does not want to be acknowledged for his idea of using MRI to study coitus.
...
We did not foresee that the men would have more problems with sexual performance (maintaining their erection) than the women in the scanner. All the women had a complete sexual response, but they described their orgasm as superficial. Only the first couple was able to perform coitus adequately without sildenafil (experiments 1 and 2). The reason might be that they were the only participants in the real sense: involved in the research right from the beginning because of their scientific curiosity, knowledge of the body, and artistic commitment. And as amateur street acrobats they are trained and used to performing under stress. (Emphasis added.)
...
Acknowledgments
And sticking it's ass in your face! All cat's are just playing one big joke on us.
Don't mind me. I'm just pissed off because I submitted this story 2 days ago. And was rejected.
-Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
I remember my physics professor telling me (like 25 years ago) that diamagnetic fields could lift a mouse without trouble. (have a sneaking suspicion he said it had been done)
... especially after a few drinks. But you'd never want to report it, would you ?
Makes me wonder if the experiment has actually been done many times before unofficially
Peter
Bitter and proud of it.
is really only the possibly experiment that can top these awards.
It's very legit.
Water is diamagnetic, (so are lots of other molecules).
This means that, very weakly, they respond do the presence of a magnetic field with the same field.
This means if you put them in a strong enough field, they can levitate.
The coil used to levitate that TINY frog, was about 6 megawatt if I remember....
Also.. stable magnetic levitation with ferromagnetic materials is theoretically impossible.
That gravity reduction thing may or may not be true. It is considered a flawed experiment by most. It is certainly not accepted scientific fact.
As for magnetic forces being bad for the body... without trying to state that absolutely it's not.... if they DID have some kind of harmful effect, we would notice it. Given that most tissue cannot respond to a magnetic field.... who knows?
"You can get your vitamins and nourishment from vitamins and minerals contained within food, or you can bypass food and hook into what we call the universal life force which is prahna. "
So basically, stop eating and let the Force feed ya. Either that or become photosynthetic. Sounds like fun...
Kat -- Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.
Either this place has zero bandwidth or it's already been slashdotted. I'll try and set up a mirror of the frog mpeg if I can get it!
The line is.....
What am I going to do with 40 subscriptions to VIBE???
http://packetnexus.com
What am I going to do with 30 subscriptions to VIBE???
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
a link that works is at the top of the page when it loads
this is the most pathetic whoring i've ever witnessed.
internet mail:anita548:aol.com ICQ#:74734566
Sorry for the bad link (it worked in the preview before posting, very odd), but the main point was to use test@test.com as an e-mail if the user was too lazy...
Most people don't tend to put their real e-mail address (to avoid spam), so might as well just use that one...
To view the ceremony, go ... If you're too lazy to register, then just use the e-mail addy test@test.com
The Psychology "winner" was a very interesting study.
It showed that the more incompetent people get, the less they realize their incompetence.
This could have a profound impact on the user interface design of everything from software to medical equipment to road signs.
It also demonstrates why people at Microsoft might actually think their operating system has a good user interface. I used to think they were just lying, but it turns out they might've just been so incompetent that they didn't realize how bad it was!
Ok, obviously there were at least 40,000 couples married in the alleged '36,000,000 Blessing,' that's how many were in the stadium at Seol, but come on... they're claiming 72 Million people being married? The earth's population is about 6 billion, so that means he is claiming to be marrying 1.2% of the total population of the planet. How come I haven't met any of these couples? Statistically, every slashdotter should know at least a few...
I am allowed to criticize you: you are not allowed to criticize me. Sorry, that's just how things are.
Please don't kill my schools server, but here is a mirror of the frog mpeg anyway. The levitating frog
It's real alright. I already knew about this a year ago. The electromagnet has an effect the very small amounts of metal in the frog's body fluids (nitrates have some part in it too, if I remember right).
Hey! My cat likes to walk across my keyboard, so it isn't as a absurd a occurance as it may seem. Of course my cat also likes to look at my screen, apparently unaware that she is blocking my view...
I had a similar reaction to the bit about being in love and being O/C disordered. For someone who has studied neuropsych, that is just plain fascinating! It should and hopefully will be repeated and expanded on if consistant.
The awards would make a lot more sense if they didn't include ridiculous psuedoscience and just stuck to well-meaning research that just turns out to be hilarious. I'm sure its just easier to pick on Breatharians than to use your brain and sense of humor to find something that isn't painfully and obviously weird.
Agreed.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Yeah, it was a documentary called The Human Body. They managed to cover (and show) just about everything from birth to death, including the scene you describe. It hardly felt like a porn flick, though - it was all very scientific and absolutely fascinating stuff. The most amazing shot, though, was a shot from *inside* a woman's reproductive organs as she, um . . .peaked. How they got *that* particular camera angle (and I'm sure it was real) I'll never know.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"Unskilled and unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing one's own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Now surely that's an article to show the PHB? But it seems it isn't on the web; does anyone know otherwise, or has anyone at least read it?
Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
"Next time you read the Washington Times, be sure to check their math. (Mind you, this is a good idea with any newspaper)"
Especially when said newspaper is owned by the one pushing the numbers.
Apparently Moon owns or owned the Washington Times. Was he before or after the right-wingers owned it?
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Next year we'll be treated to MRI scans of flying frogs "doing it" in mid-air.
Or maybe flying people, if the researchers can keep them up long enough.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Of course, I live in Baltimore, just up the road from DC, so I'm more familiar with the local papers than other /. readers might be.
As it happens, I buy it sometimes, because even here in Baltimore I can get it for .25, while the Baltimore Sun is .50. I don't read either one, mind you, but I have a puppy.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Apparently living on light is a whole lot like munching lots of LSD.
Even Science Friday doesn't do this...
The Ig Nobel Prize honors individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." [from the site
:)
Why *wouldn't* you want to levitate that frog again? I think that perhaps the most important method of spending our tax dollars very well may be levitating frogs and other amphibious creatures.
But I do want to check: the levitating frog is the real deal, right? I remember hearing about it at the time, and I still think it's pretty goddamned cool. The movie cracks me up. But before I go around telling people that I have a video clip of a floating frog, I figure I should check to make sure it's legit.
-Waldo
...is some really fast banjo music in the background. Yow!
I'm surprised they only got 13 participants!
So was there a menage-a-trois or was one just masturbating?
HH
We score a 2 out of ten.
I'ts great to live in a country where it seems not everything has to be dull and boring..
Q. My cat is deaf. Can you help me?
A. PawSense detects the paws of even deaf cats. Even if a cat is deaf, PawSense blocks cat typing once detected.
what about GPL?
gPawSense?
CONFIG_OWN_A_CAT=m ?
.
I probably have to get that Pawsense thing. I come home and my computer is online and the cat is sleeping in the computer chair. Verrry suspicious. They also love "helping" to play games.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
But I do want to check: the levitating frog is the real deal, right?
Sure it's the real deal. It's a frog stuck above a pipe that's got air flowing out of it at a high speed.
You can try this at home with a Shopvac turned in reverse (or a leaf blower) and a ping-pong ball. The air rushing out of the pipe creates a lower pressure, which keeps the ball (or the frog in this case) above the pipe.
Or so I remember from my physics class.
Bart
"Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal"
So now when someone asks a participant where the weirdest place they had sex was, they can truthfully answer "in an MRI machine!"
I'm surprised they only got 13 participants!