'Laugh then Think': Strange Research Honored at 33rd Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (improbable.com) 15
Since 1999, Slashdot has been covering the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremonies — which honor real scientific research into strange or surprising subjects. "Each winner (or winning team) has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK," explains the ceremony web page, promising that "a gaggle of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates handed the Ig Nobel Prizes to the new Ig Nobel winners." As co-founder Marc Abrahams says on his LinkedIn profile, "All these things celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."
You can watch this year's entire goofy webcast online. (At 50 minutes there's a jaw-droppingly weird music video about running on water...) Slashdot reader Thorfinn.au shares this summary of this year's winning research: CHEMISTRY and GEOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, UK] — Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks.
LITERATURE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK, MALAYSIA, FINLAND] — Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O'Connor for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PRIZE [INDIA, CHINA, MALAYSIA, USA] — Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE [SOUTH KOREA, USA] — Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet a computer vision system for defecation analysis et al.
COMMUNICATION PRIZE [ARGENTINA, SPAIN, COLOMBIA, CHILE, CHINA, USA] — María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward.
MEDICINE PRIZE [USA, CANADA, MACEDONIA, IRAN, VIETNAM] — Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person's two nostrils.
NUTRITION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food.
EDUCATION PRIZE [HONG KONG, CHINA, CANADA, UK, THE NETHERLANDS, IRELAND, USA, JAPAN] — Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students.
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA] — Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for 1968 experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward.
PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK] — Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies.
You can watch this year's entire goofy webcast online. (At 50 minutes there's a jaw-droppingly weird music video about running on water...) Slashdot reader Thorfinn.au shares this summary of this year's winning research: CHEMISTRY and GEOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, UK] — Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks.
LITERATURE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK, MALAYSIA, FINLAND] — Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O'Connor for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PRIZE [INDIA, CHINA, MALAYSIA, USA] — Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE [SOUTH KOREA, USA] — Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet a computer vision system for defecation analysis et al.
COMMUNICATION PRIZE [ARGENTINA, SPAIN, COLOMBIA, CHILE, CHINA, USA] — María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward.
MEDICINE PRIZE [USA, CANADA, MACEDONIA, IRAN, VIETNAM] — Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person's two nostrils.
NUTRITION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food.
EDUCATION PRIZE [HONG KONG, CHINA, CANADA, UK, THE NETHERLANDS, IRELAND, USA, JAPAN] — Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students.
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA] — Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for 1968 experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward.
PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK] — Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies.
Necrobotics (Score:2)
Where was this field of study when I went to college?
Re:Necrobotics (Score:5, Funny)
Don't know about your college, in mine it was in the cafeteria.
Love it (Score:2)
I love this kind of pure, somewhat silly research.
Re:Love it (Score:5, Informative)
I love this kind of pure, somewhat silly research.
Then you'd probably would like the Journal of Irreproducible Results [wikipedia.org] (and similar). One study I read in the JIR (way back) was about how the probably of the buttered/jam side of toast landing face down was proportional to the price of the carpet. They included different kinds of bread, jam, etc...
Wikipedia also notes [wikipedia.org] that one of this journal's former editors Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobels.
The Ig Nobels were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results, ...
Re: (Score:2)
We had this idea at uni for creating a journal of "beery theories" that basically involved getting scientists and social researchers absolutely hammered drunk and getting them to write a paper, preferably with actual data to see the sort of hypothesis people could come up with while ruinously drunk.
I'd still like to do it one day. Admittedly probably only good for a single edition, but it'd be a fun read.
Re: (Score:2)
We had this idea at uni for creating a journal of "beery theories" that basically involved getting scientists and social researchers absolutely hammered drunk and getting them to write a paper, preferably with actual data to see the sort of hypothesis people could come up with while ruinously drunk.
I'd still like to do it one day. Admittedly probably only good for a single edition, but it'd be a fun read.
This is literally the idea I've had for cannabis research for quite awhile, owing to how weed significantly affects cognition in that "stoner epiphany" sort of way. And hey, if there's even one or a few genuine pieces of golden insight amidst all the hazy mental turdnuggets, all the better...
NerdNite (Score:2)
They remonded me of NerdNite [nerdnite.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Inconceivable! Inconceivable! Inconceivable!
Putting the anal back in analysis. (Score:3)
Never thought I'd see a toilet with a doctor's degree.
Nobels (Score:2)
how many Ig Nobel winners eventually became Nobel Lauretes? I know at least one did, Andre Geim.
Re: (Score:3)
People misunderstand Ig Nobel. It's not bad. (Score:2)
slashdot? (Score:2)
Surely slashdot should get the ignoble prize for journalism.
Suggestions for further studies (Score:1)
"for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies."
I wonder if similar shoal movement close to water surface can cause atmospheric pressure variations to the point of forming what would become a tornado.