Hannah Fry✓

Turns out you can catfish a midge with a 275 Hz tone As expertly demonstrated by @calpiano4him (on insta) The loudspeaker experiment 🦟🔊: Intrinsic Fluctuations and Driven Response of Insect Swarms by R Ni, J Puckett, E Dufresne, and N Ouellette (2015)

I know the struggle all too well - don't have your glasses, but can't find your glasses without your glasses. Give this trick a try. Game changer.

Maybe slightly less useful than the hot car suggestion... but desperate times call for desperate measures!

I first shared this a year ago today - but thought it worth posting again if it helps in this scorchio!

n a 2018 interview for the Guardian he explained that many of the stings were accidentally received due to the nature of his work. But what wasn't accidental was his dedication to recording and capturing the unique data: "I know some people think me crazy, but I am no masochist, and only occasionally am stung on purpose. When it does happen, I initially react as anyone else would – cursing, more than I should admit. Then I get out my notebook and stopwatch, sit down and make notes." The full lis

Stamp duty is back in the news again (along with the echoing demands to reform it) so I thought I would take the opportunity to explain just why it is so problematic. The thing is, it generates about £10 billion a year, so politicians are too scared to mess with it. But it is, itself, a MESS. Data comes from the Office for National Statistics release, Housing affordability in England and Wales: 2025 and Transfer taxes and household mobility by Hilber and Lyytikainen, (2017)

You can feel it on other people's skin too! If they hold a charging phone or tablet while sitting on a bed or somewhere with their feet off the ground (so they aren't themselves grounded) and you keep your feet on the ground and gently stroke their skin with your finger - you will feel them "buzzing" (as long as you're both sweaty enough of course...)

As a further warning for the horrors of what bleach can do if left on too long ⚠️ have a look at: Alkalis and Skin by J Greenwood, JL Tan, JC Ming, and A Abell (2016) And for a great exploration into how soap was potentially first discovered 🧼 slip and slide your way to: An Experimental Exploration of the Earliest Soapmaking, by S Pointer (2024)

Play around with the flocking algorithm at boids.dan.onl Or read the original paper here: Flocks, Herds, and Schools: a Distributed Behavioural Model by Craig W. Reynolds (1987)

I may have overestimated my ability to create a seamless edit of them growing and shrinking 😆 but you get the idea! Also you have to assume the ball is being 3d printed on the precise plane of the 2d ant's (also flat) eyeball. Which turned out to be very hard to draw. So you might need to use your imagination a little bit extra on this one!