A paper on how birds are attracted to their mates based on smelling each other's farts (seriously?)

By worldsfair on October 16, 2006.

Published, no less, in Nature. Except that this is, of course, a shameless plug for the Science Creative Quarterly, which today has a convincing fake/joke paper on the subject.

And how can one be certain that it's fake? Easy - just look at the author of the paper.

More like this

Advertisment

Donate

ScienceBlogs is where scientists communicate directly with the public. We are part of Science 2.0, a science education nonprofit operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Please make a tax-deductible donation if you value independent science communication, collaboration, participation, and open access.

You can also shop using Amazon Smile and though you pay nothing more we get a tiny something.

Science 2.0

Science Codex

More by this author

It's official! I'm blogging again! ...

September 13, 2011

...but actually somewhere else... So what's going on? The short version is that this is a goodbye post. The long version goes a little like this: 1. For a while now, I've been using twitter, primarily as a place to highlight interesting things. It has more or less replaced my blogging output.…

Should everyone have access to life saving medicines?

June 8, 2011

(You can follow Dave on twitter @dnghub) 30 MINUTES, 70 FATES. You don't know it, but as I write this piece, there is some serious procrastination going on. My attention span is weak and sidetracked constantly by a variety of diversions, and if you must know, it's taken me close to half an hour to…

What Would You Say to your Children about the Canadian Government? (My Two Cents)

May 2, 2011

It's election time again and, as is the norm, we see teachers using the opportunity to talk to their students about things such as Prime Ministers, parliaments, senates, and, well, basically - how this thing we call the "Canadian Government" is meant to work. My own daughter who is in Grade 4 is…

Professional Workshop offered on "How to Clone a Human."

April 12, 2011

I just noticed that there's a workshop being offered from June 13th to June 18th, 2011, in Vancouver, Canada, that provides technical and hands-on training for "scientists and non-scientists interested in human cloning." This course has a price tag of $1400 (does not include transportation, room…

Killing Bill C-393 would be a facepalm of the highest possible order.

March 17, 2011

(Reprinted from Boingboing) Access to life-saving medicines is not a luxury, but a human right. ~Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network To me, the above statement is one of those things that sound like a no-brainer. Put another way, if I were to ask you whether you thought a person's income should…