Cuteness can be powerful on a national level and also internationally, according to this study: “Soft Power: ʻCute Culture’, A Persuasive Strategy in Japanese Advertising,” Oana-Maria Bîrlea, TRAMES, A Journal Of The Humanities And Social Sciences, 2023, pp. 311–324. The author [pictured here] explains: “The article addresses the ways in which soft power is used […]
Color Preference in the Insane, Can Consumers Recognize the Taste of their Favorite Beer?, Effect of Audience Boredom on the Power Hungry, You Never Sleep Alone, Improbable Medical Review, Extracting the Wrong Tooth, and Telephones for Animals. In episode #206, Marc Abrahams shows some unfamiliar research studies to Jean Berko Gleason, Chris Cotsapas, Maggie Lettvin, […]
Two coffee/caffeine/electricity-generation studies to consider: “Direct power generation from waste coffee grounds in a biomass fuel cell,” Hansaem Jang, Joey D. Ocon, Seunghwa Lee, Jae Kwang Lee, and Jaeyoung Lee, Journal of Power Sources, 296 (2015): 433-439. “Caffeine Improves the Performance and Thermal Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells,” Rui Wang, Jingjing Xue, Lei Meng, Yonghai […]
Dr Richard Stephens, of Keele University, UK, was a co-recipient of the 2010 Ig Nobel Peace Prize for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain. Since then, his work on swearing has continued, and he’s the lead author of a 2018 paper for the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise (Volume 35, March 2018, Pages […]
