A year and a half ago, an article about cycads at the University of Giessen brought to my attention the University’s most famous member, about whom Wikipedia says:

Recently a news item from Duke University appeared:

"Cute" Chimps in Ads May Harm Species' Survival

"We were testing the argument that the entertainment industry has made that exposure to chimpanzees in human settings makes people more sympathetic to their plight," said Brian Hare, an assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke.  "In fact, the opposite is true. We found people became less concerned about the risks chimpanzees face after they'd seen the entertainment clips."

Recently, I read an article in the New York Times entitled

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?

which presents neurological work showing contrary effects in people trying to exercise will power:

more activity in the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s reward center, and a corresponding decrease in the amygdala, which ordinarily helps control impulses.

Glucose levels in the different parts of the brain are implicated here.  This is particularly bad for dieters, because

1. In order not to eat, a dieter needs willpower.

My attention has been drawn to this, by Anthony Watts:

Video analysis and scene replication suggests that Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project fabricated their Climate 101 video “Simple Experiment”

I would like to scrutinize it myself, but

Nad oes ynof nerth na bywyd
Fel yn gorwedd yn y bedd

I have no strength or life
Like one lying in a grave

so I would be pleased if any readers could give their verdict.

One of the things I used to enjoy as a youngster was Dundee Cake, a famous traditional Scottish fruit cake with a rich flavour.

Not long ago, one of the reporters on The One Show went up to Bonny Dundee to be put through his paces by Professor Rami Abboud of the Foot Pressure Analysis Lab/Clinic at the university.  From work there, it seems that the designers of trainers have done their job only too well, so that today’s joggers put down their heels first when they run, rather than the ball of the foot.

I just now dug up this from the Science Codex:
 

Milestone: A methane-metal marriage

relating how the group of Lucy Ziurys at the University of Arizona have found a promising new way of making methylzinc, and published it at the end of last year.  Compounds like this have been known since the mid-nineteenth century, but it appears that the new method might require much smaller overheads for industrial scale use, as well as being exciting new chemistry.