Good Good Boy Alert: The Dogs of 2024
Before the chaos of 2025 really kicks in, luxuriate in the dogs of 2024.
The Important Questions of Our Time — What if….
As we enter the bleak months of winter, now is the time to ponder the really important questions, like, what would happen if every person on earth shined a laser pointer on the moon?
The Difficulties of Reproducing a Scientific Experiment
Reproducing an experiment is harder than you might think.
A Musical Tour of the History of Scholarly Communications
Congratulations to Heather Staines and her cast for converting ALPSP delegates to the grand tradition of the conference skit.
The Chemistry of American Cheese
What exactly is American Cheese, and what can chemistry tells us about why it melts so much better than other types of cheeses?
Forget about AI, Here Comes PowerPoint
Did you know that PowerPoint is the only computing application you need to do, well, anything?
The World of Competitive Excel eSports
Think you’re pretty handy with Excel? Wait until you see the world of professional spreadsheet competitors.
The BTO Goes Electric
A landmark musical event, as the Boston Typewriter Orchestra breaks new ground.
A PDF Bigger than the Universe
How big can a PDF be?
What if the Earth Suddenly Stopped Spinning?
XKCD’s Randall Munroe has launched a video series around his “What If?” books and today answers the question, what if the earth stopped spinning?
When Contractions Don’t Work
Why do some contractions work and others don’t?
Scholarly Communications Meets your Christmas Cracker
It’s been “the year of generative AI”, so Charlie Rapple asked ChatGPT to write some cracker-standard Christmas jokes with a scholarly communications theme.
The 33rd First Annual IgNobel Prize Winners
It’s that time of year again when the big science prizes are awarded. No, not those prizes.
The Dangers of Automation: Keep Your Pokemon-playing Fish Away from Your Credit Cards
A YouTuber sets up a system where the swimming patterns of his fish let them “play” Pokemon online. What could possibly go wrong?
Editors can’t spot talent. I’ve heard this joke before. It isn’t funny
Editors at The BMJ are lousy at predicting the citation performance of research papers. Or are they?