Health
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The Issue: In grocery stores, many snacks are sold in gigantic jumbo size packages. It can be hard to resist the compelling economic argument in favor of these snacks: you might get TEN TIMES as many potato chips for only twice the price. Unfortunately, this means that you may later feel compelled to actually eat…
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Background: One great idea for encouraging people to get exercise is the 2012 phone app “Zombies, Run!” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombies,_Run). This program gauges the user’s jogging progress by monitoring their phone’s GPS location, and it periodically warns the user that a horde of virtual zombies is chasing them. This should motivate the jogger to temporarily speed up…
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The Issue: When a person is walking around a corner, there’s always a chance that they’ll unluckily collide with someone walking the opposite way (Figure 1). The fundamental problem is obvious enough: there’s just no way to see around the corner. Hospitals and parking garages frequently solve this issue by placing a big convex mirror…
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Background: Apparently there exists a rarely-celebrated “Darwin Day” holiday on February 12 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Day). Charles Darwin is famous for looking at a bunch of weird birds—finches, specifically—and wondering if natural selection could explain the differences in their beaks. If I remember my high school biology, the idea is that each beak type is suitable for eating…
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Background: Sometimes, restaurant menus will list a dish as “market price,” rather than giving a specific set price. (This is most commonly seen for seafood.) In such a situation, a diner would have to inquire as to what the specific price would be on a given day, based on the relative supply and demand of…
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The Issue: Ovens and stoves can be dangerous home appliances. They can get extremely hot and they typically operate completely silently. This makes it easy for people to forget that they left the stove on! Interestingly, a similar issue exists for electric cars: they’re SO quiet at low speeds (as compared to a gas engine)…
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Background: For a person who has too much stress in their life, there are dozens of recommendations for various types of yoga and meditation that will purportedly bring peace and tranquility (Figure 1). The Issue: Strangely, there has been no attempt to adjust the stress levels for someone who leads a too-related-and-carefree lifestyle. Why is…
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Background: A “chocolate fountain” is a food-serving item that a person might see at a wedding or fancy party: it’s just a device that recirculates melted chocolate so that you can dip strawberries or marshmallows in it before chomping them (Figure 1). Fancy! The Issue: Strangely, this type of device is almost never seen recirculating…
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Background: In most neighborhoods constructed within the last century, streets are designed almost entirely for cars. The ability of a human to travel on two feet is sadly only a neglected afterthought. As a result, many sidewalks are cracked, partially lifted up by tree roots, or otherwise irregular in a way where tripping on them…
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The Issue: Thousands of pedestrian fatalities occur every year. It can be easy for the driver of a fast-moving car to not see a person crossing the road ahead until it’s too late. Often, these collisions occur at night, even in areas with good streetlight coverage. But if streetlights aren’t sufficient, what else can be…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 