This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Chicken blushing — People — humans — blush. Chickens aren’t entirely inhuman in that they, too, show emotions on their facial skin. Delphine Soulet at the University of Tours, France, and colleagues have explored how skin redness […]
“Why are they using SALIVA to clean works of art?” is a short video in the Química por aí series. It explores the Ig Nobel Prize winning research about using human saliva — spit — to preserve and repair valuable paintings, sculpture, and other art works: The 2018 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded […]
Last month human saliva got its due, with the awarding of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prize for chemistry, as an effective agent to clean surfaces. This month, pillars and pancakes are served up as an effective way to pattern surfaces so that those surfaces will be self-cleaning. Pillar/pancake details are in the new study “Pillars […]
Certain studies are tongue in cheek. This certain study is interested in the fluids between the tongue and cheek. Mouthwatering science abounds in the article, “New Techniques for Augmenting Saliva Collection: Bacon Rules and Lozenge Drools.” Hoping to find a method that increases the rate mouth fluids can be collected, researchers had volunteers’ saliva analyzed […]